FORMER State Minister for Legal Affairs Damian Gomez.
By KHRISNA VIRGIL
Tribune Staff Reporter
kvirgil@tribunemedia.net
STATE Minister for Legal Affairs Damian Gomez said due to Tropical Storm Erika, which is expected to hit his constituency on the weekend, he will likely file his proposed Election Court petitions to declare the Long Island and Killarney seats vacant by next week Friday.
This statement came after his shock announcement on Sunday that he planned to file the respective prospective petitions this week.
Asked to respond to criticism that he has embarked on a witch-hunt for members of the FNM rather than pursue more important issues, including bribe allegations related to the Bahamas Electricity Corporation dating back to 1999, Mr Gomez said both issues were “totally different” in nature.
He said this proposed legal battle, which was a personal decision and is being carried out by his attorneys, had nothing to do with the Christie administration or the Ministry of Legal Affairs.
However, the Central and South Eleuthera MP told The Tribune yesterday that he was still gathering information on new allegations against Long Island MP Loretta Butler-Turner and Killarney MP Dr Hubert Minnis to be included with the mounting evidence he plans to present.
He suggested that other officials are on his radar and said he was also looking into allegations made against a member of his own party, which he believed were false.
“Right now my main concern is how my constituency will be affected by Tropical Storm Erika and to ensure we are ready for her when she comes,” Mr Gomez said.
“Any action that will happen on my part will most likely come after the storm has passed. So if I had to estimate, I would say we will be ready by next Friday.
“In the meantime, I am drafting and getting more information from more people about other allegations and perusing those as well to be included when I take action.”
Since revealing his plans to file the petitions, Mr Gomez has been the subject of criticism that he was playing politics by targeting the opposition, while turning a blind eye to his fellow party MPs. However, he denied this yesterday.
“I had heard a rumour about one of my colleagues which I will check out this week. But I am satisfied that it was only a rumour and is false. What I have uncovered is that the company that is the source of the allegations was sold and the person in question no longer has a stake in that entity. So what has been swirling around is based on old information.
“Contrary to what people are saying, I am applying the same principle to all of my colleagues,” he said.
He declined to name this colleague.
On Monday, Mrs Butler-Turner said she would sue Mr Gomez for criminal defamation of character after he revealed intentions to file the petitions over an alleged violation of the Constitution’s conflict of interest rules.
The Long Island MP has denied that she has any shares in any company which has a contract with the government. She has called Mr Gomez’s statements “false and defamatory”.
The agreements in question are the Stat Care contract signed between a company which Dr Minnis has interests in and the Public Hospitals Authority (PHA) in 2005, before he entered politics. The arrangement was continued while Dr Minnis served as health minister from 2007 to 2012 and continues on a month-to-month basis.
Dr Minnis has said the allegation of a conflict of interest is a non-issue because he disclosed the matter after he was elected. He has also said that while he was minister of health he ordered the PHA to move its facility, however the agency has not yet done so.
The alleged conflict with Mrs Butler-Turner reportedly centres on a government department renting space from the Milo B Butler and Sons building.
In taking this course of action, Mr Gomez has said that he does not understand why the Long Island MP would take a defensive tone because his bid to remove her and the FNM leader from the House of Assembly was not to prove that they were guilty of “skullduggery” but to show that they are in contravention of Article 49 of the Constitution.
That clause states that if a member of Parliament does not get approval from the House of Assembly or the Senate through a resolution to have a contract with the government, his/her seat should be declared vacated by the Election Court.
Mr Gomez has said he resorted to this action following a private meeting with Dr Minnis advising him to bring resolutions to the House of Assembly seeking approval for the contracts to continue.
Comments
Economist 9 years, 3 months ago
Emmmm, you haven't even issued anything on the BEC bribe yet....and you were given everything on a silver platter....BUT... you can put all this together in a couple of days????
Something smells.
proudloudandfnm 9 years, 3 months ago
GOOD!!! Hope he's not just threatening for threatening sake!! Do it!! break that hyman so the FNM can prosecute all these slimy PLPs after they win in 2017!!!!
MonkeeDoo 9 years, 3 months ago
Gomez had mentioned bringing an action against Allison Maynard Gibson for corruption, as I recall. What happened to that initiative ? Did someone stop him ? He has her red handed. Family fingers in the cookie jar. Slam dunk !
Hogfish 9 years, 3 months ago
HA! you going to have the AG's office file a motion against herself???! This the most wickedest corrupted one of them all !! And yoll be carefull caused She will never be satisfied!! She is GREED in the flesh and next on her power and money ambitions is the PM office !
MonkeeDoo 9 years, 3 months ago
Muddoes Hogfish !
Well_mudda_take_sic 9 years, 3 months ago
Re-post: Assuming he is not saddled with his own conflicts of interest and has fulfilled all of his financial disclosures required by statute, the FNM should give very serious consideration to Peter Turnquest becoming the new face of its leadership at the earliest possible time. Minnis and LBT need to be forced to step aside; Minnis is in fact now much too compromised to lead and therefore should be made to do the right thing by resigning from his seat in parliament!
Wideawake 9 years, 3 months ago
Why on earth would Deputy Attorney General Gomez, file a petition in The Election Court as a "personal" matter, "not involving the Christie administration or the Department of Legal Affairs"???
Isn't that tantamount to a policeman doing a "citizen's arrest" ??
Does that mean that ANY Bahamian can file a petition in The Election Court, if THEY think that a member of the HOA has a conflict of interest??...If so, Ho! Ho! Ho!....let the FUN begin!!
Or is it that, as Deputy AG, Mr. Gomez has decided to embark on this, obviously politicized action, as a "hobby", or as something he does for sport, on the weekends, using his own attorney's, after he's finished his regular job????
asiseeit 9 years, 3 months ago
THE MINION IS DOING HIS JOB. SMOKE AND MIRRORS. BANANA!
asiseeit 9 years, 3 months ago
Did anyone hear or see any politician disclose their assets this year? Was it gazetted as the law stipulates?
TruePeople 9 years, 3 months ago
It's up to the ppl to press them into accountability. There was a rally to bring citizen concern regarding crime one day here past, and it have a poor turn out. Small island, we can catch and harass these political criminals if we really want to, and oust them. Who really want to and who want just talk?
Hogfish 9 years, 3 months ago
i been saying lopng time now that Peter Turnquest needs to take over. The man only talks sense.
BUT
He will have to give up his part-ownership in Sky Bahamas so that the country get be rid of the scourge that is Bananas Air!
otherwise that would be another conflict.
Well_mudda_take_sic 9 years, 3 months ago
Until the FNM replaces Minnis with someone like Peter Turnquest, most Bahamians really can't blame Christie for not resigning in shame. The PLP will hands down win the next general election if Minnis remains the leader of the FNM. Minnis is nothing but a corrupt "all for me" politician who believes, in his small warped disingenuous and dishonest mind, that the laws of the land do not apply to him. Notice how you no longer hear him or any of the other FNM MPs speaking out loudly against the serious conflicts of interest that Christie and Maynard-Gibson have involving their immediate family members and Baha Mar. Minnis has not only permanently compromised himself as a result of his own blatant and illegally undisclosed conflict of interest involving the Public Hospital Authority, but he has also compromised all of the other sitting FNM MPs. Until Minnis is removed as leader of the FNM, no one in the opposition will have a leg to stand on when it comes to speaking out against or calling for a special commission of enquiry to investigate the many corrupt conflicts of interest that exist within our government from the parliamentarian level right on down! Bradley Roberts alone will see to that!!
TruePeople 9 years, 3 months ago
They all in it for the money.
Wideawake 9 years, 3 months ago
To many Leeches ( Leechez ) sucking the blood of the nation!!
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