The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Deputy Chief Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

PRIME Minister Perry Christie yesterday denied that he recently gained the public support of a group of Free National Movement (FNM) turncoats in exchange for them to receive employment or favourable treatment, adding that to assert otherwise was “demeaning”.

Mr Christie added that if any of them were unemployed he “would love to give them jobs”.

The Prime Minister went on to admit that “there was no question” about his authorisation of employment for Ivoine Ingraham, a once staunch FNM member who in recent times supported Long Island MP Loretta Butler-Turner in her first failed attempt at winning the leadership of the FNM.

Mr Ingraham confirmed to The Tribune yesterday that he is now attached to the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM).

Mr Ingraham was among a group of FNMs including former Cabinet ministers Byron Woodside and Algernon Allen along with former members Lester Turnquest and Anthony Miller, who on the final night of the Progressive Liberal Party’s (PLP) convention took to the stage to pledge support for Mr Christie. The group, last Thursday, at one point described Mr Christie as the “greatest leader” that this country has ever seen.

When he was contacted yesterday, Mr Allen said he was responsible for facilitating the move. He told The Tribune that there were also about 30 other “opposition activists” waiting in a suite at the Melia Nassau Beach Hotel. The remaining people, Mr Allen said, were not seen on stage because there was no seating available for them in the convention hall.

“If they are unemployed I would love to give them jobs,” Mr Christie said on the sidelines of a ceremony at D W Davis Junior High. “But Lester Turnquest and all those MPs, I think Anthony Miller is working for us. Algernon Allen is the co-chair of Urban Renewal, but he’s been with us for two elections or three for that matter. He’s not just come.”

He also said: “I don’t know that Lester Turnquest has never asked me for a job. He’s never asked me for anything for that matter.” Mr Turnquest is the deputy chairman on the board of the Water and Sewerage Corporation.

“Ivoine Ingraham, I would be delighted to give him a job,” Mr Christie added. “He was such a major critic of mine. He’s a talented writer. I think most certainly I have authorised his employment. No question about that.

“But if you’re saying that people joined me because of a job, no. I think you are demeaning them by saying that. They’re too strong for that. People make a choice. Listen to me; our job is to prepare the country for a general election and to win the election. If you’re going to try to demean people, you’re only going to motivate them to do more to defeat you.”

Not long after the turncoats’ public show of support for Mr Christie, speculation swirled that there were strings attached to their actions.

It has angered seasoned PLPs, with one party insider telling The Tribune it was “a shame that PLPs can’t get anything, while FNMs are being taken care of. Every last one of them got something out of the deal.”

It has been alleged that one of the former FNMs recently landed a post overseeing construction at Baha Mar, another of them a senior position in the Ministry of Works and one of them was appointed to the Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation (BAIC). These allegations have not been confirmed.

No excuses

Yesterday, Mr Ingraham was on the defensive, but admitted that he recently began working in the OPM, but would not confirm when he began there. He denied that this had anything to do with his new support for the Prime Minister, adding that as a Bahamian he is entitled to work wherever he pleases and does not need approval from anyone to do this.

Mr Ingraham said: “I didn’t get anything from him (Mr Christie). I gave him my support because of what he is doing for the country. Let me just say something. I am a Bahamian. I don’t have to make an excuse for me benefitting from anything that’s happening in the Bahamas. I’m a Bahamian 100 per cent and I make no excuses for it.

“Now I would like to add though, what is all of this talk and this questioning? Renward Wells and Rollins just left the PLP and went to the FNM. It didn’t cause all of this right? Hubert Ingraham went from the PLP to the FNM and saved them from not ever winning an election.”

Asked if he recently got a job in Mr Christie’s office, he replied: “I am working out of the Office of the PM, yes.”

He was then pressed further and asked if he acquired the job before his pledge of support, Mr Ingraham said: “No.”

He added: “I won’t go into detail with that. I just told you I am working in the Office of the PM right? I said I did and I didn’t deny that right?

“Now let me ask you, as a Bahamian am I deserving to have a job? Should I have to ask anyone’s opinion (on) what I am doing with my personal life? Or should I get their approval? I don’t care what people say.”

For his part, when he was contacted yesterday, Mr Allen said his relationship with Mr Christie spanned the last 50 years.

He said: “I have found that he is a man of compassion and I believe that he is a man who exhibits the type of leadership I admire in the Kendal Isaacs, the Cecil Wallace Whitfields and that which I admire in (former Prime Minister) Hubert Ingraham. I find that he is a man with the abilities to make people feel welcomed and make people feel a significant part of the national effort to build this country and that is why I support him.

“I have nothing that I need from him because God has been good to me and mine.”

Mr Allen, Urban Renewal co-chair, added: “Certainly there is nothing that I have ever requested from him. I have never had that type of need. I live a very simple life. When we re-established our relationship in 2002 I have been able to assist people across the board irrespective of the political divide and I’ve done so without anything because I have been a proponent of the philosophy of one Bahamas.”

“So that is essentially what it is all about. Insofar as the people supporting one party in one period of their lives and then supporting another at another period in their lives, I was a PLP in 1969, in 1967, in 1968. I became an FNM and I’ve now returned to the support of Mr Christie and the PLP and I see nothing exceptional about it,” Mr Allen said.

On Sunday, former PLP Cabinet minister George Smith told The Tribune the group should move quickly to prove the reasoning behind the move in order to avoid being branded “political parasites and opportunists”.

He said if it is seen as them “singing for their supper” or gratitude for favourable treatment, then it would not be perceived as a genuine belief in the PLP or Mr Christie.