The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Democratic National Alliance’s (DNA) leader yesterday said the ‘Save the Bays’ e-mail leak had been “more detrimental” to the Bahamas and its financial services industry than the so-called ‘Panama Papers’ revelations.

Branville McCartney told Tribune Business that the seeming ability of Bahamian political leaders to obtain confidential data belonging to private individuals, and to disclose it at will for their own benefit, was likely to scare investors more than the release of 11.5 million documents from a Panamanian law firm.

Although the Bahamas was Mossack Fonseca’s third most-popular jurisdiction for company incorporations, standing at more than 15,000, Mr McCartney said the disclosure of Save the Bays’ e-mails - under the cover of Parliamentary privilege - carried the greater threat to this nation.

“I think investors can be a bit concerned,” Mr McCartney said of the ‘Panama Papers’ outcry. “Whether it turns them off from the Bahamas, I’m not so sure.

“What turns them off from the Bahamas more is politicians’ giving out private citizens’ information. That is more concerning. That would be more concerning that persons being deterred from investing in the Bahamas.

“It would seem our leaders, our politicians, can have access to personal, private and financial information. It goes contrary to our Data Protection Act. The political garbage can stinks in the Bahamas.”

Mr McCartney’s latter comment was a carefully-aimed barb at Jerome Fitzgerald, minister of education, science and technology, who previously said he obtained the Save the Bays e-mails from his ‘political garbage can’.

An unrepentant Mr Fitzgerald yesterday stood by his decision to disclose the non-profit environmental group’s e-mails in Parliament, and threatened to table more bank statements and documents if his reputation was threatened (see News section Page 1).

The timing of such a threat, though, will be less than desired by the Bahamian financial services industry and wider private sector, which are already likely to be on edge - and braced for further disclosures - as a result of the ‘Panama Papers’ leak.

Mr Fitzgerald previously disclosed Save the Bays’ e-mails relating to an advertisement the group planned to take out. He was joined by Fred Mitchell, minister of foreign affairs, who accused hedge fund billionaire Louis Bacon of spending millions of dollars to “destabilise” the Government, and Leslie Miller, who read out salaries allegedly being paid to Save the Bays members.

With the Save the Bays ‘e-mails’ row refusing to go away, Mr McCartney told Tribune Business: “That could be more of a deterrent than the issue going on with Panama.

“It gives the impression that persons in power in this country would have access to data, information at their will, and will release it at their will. That is not good, not only for foreign investors coming to this country but also Bahamians.

“We cannot have a government that uses its power in an abusive way to obtain information to the detriment of others. That should not happen in a democratic society. It’s a bit more detrimental than what happened with Panama.”

Mr McCartney urged Bahamians to follow Iceland’s example, where public protests in the wake of the ‘Panama Papers’ revelations forced that country’s prime minister to resign.

Suggesting there was ample justification for similar action in the Bahamas, given the Government’s numerous missteps and failures, the DNA leader told Tribune Business: “What happened in Iceland is what we need to do here, where the people rose up. We can point to a number of discrepancies that have occurred under this PLP administration.

“We as Bahamians are too passive, allow these things to happen, and don’t know our worth. The power of the people is greater than that of the people in power, and the people of Iceland have shown that.”

Mr McCartney acknowledged, though, that the ‘Panama Papers’ disclosures would likely cause international financial centres (IFCs) to greater scrutiny, and potential crackdowns, by the G-20 nations and their various regulatory/watchdog bodies.

The Bahamas is unlikely to escape this, and the DNA chief added: “I think they [the G-20] would use this as an opportunity to perhaps look at ways of being more stringent and cracking down on the Bahamas.’

Mr McCartney warned that the web shop gaming industry might provide a weakness for the G-20 and its acolytes to exploit, and questioned whether the sector had followed through on properly implementing anti-money laundering and counter-terror financing measures.

Pointing out that web shops were still acting as money transmission businesses, he added: “Persons can go into a web shop, put money on an account, and send it to someone in Grand Bahama.

“There’s no regulation and monitoring of that banking activity.... All of these things put together do not bode well for our country, given what transpired in Panama.”

Eight web shop operators have received provisional licences from the Gaming Board to-date. Obie Wilchcombe, who has ministerial responsibility for gaming, expects full licences to be issued within months.