The Tribune

By Khrisna Virgil

Deputy Chief Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

MINISTER of State for Legal Affairs Elsworth Johnson insisted yesterday the country cannot continue to “pretend” that immigrant communities do not exist, while suggesting that dangers to residents abound in shanty towns because of a failure to enforce existing regulations.

Mr Johnson also told parliamentarians that he, along with the Attorney General’s Office, stands “ready to do the people’s business” regarding delinquent former and current members of Parliament who have not disclosed their assets as required by law.

He further revealed that the government intends to transfer sensitive matters or the issuance of nolle prosequi to the director of public prosecutions and that legislation will be drafted to make this arm of the judiciary independent.

In this regard, he said the government will also undergo a public education process to engage civil society in such matters as nolle prosequi to remove the “illusive” perception attached to this kind of legal action. A nolle prosequi is a formal notice to drop a case.

During his maiden address in the House of Assembly as a Cabinet minister, the former Bahamas Bar Association president delivered a comprehensive review of both the state of the judiciary and the “robust” legislative agenda that has been adopted by the Minnis administration. 

He said there were 19 cases in which the government’s priorities explicitly require either new or reformed legislation.

On the issue of shanty towns, he said: “There are certain persons in our community now, Mr Speaker, that we can no longer, as we clean up the city of Nassau (and) as we look to improve the human dignity of the woman and the child, we can no longer pretend as if we don’t have immigrant communities.”

  “We cannot walk around that,” he told members of parliament yesterday.

“I live on Cowpen Road and let me give you a scenario. We have lights. We have police officers. We have everything that goes around, (but) can you imagine in communities where the houses are built onto each other there is no light. There is no social services. There are no police officers and you have a young girl at age 16 fully developed (in a) transient community in the night? That goes to speak to our dignity and sense of urgency. We have laws in terms of how we should build and construct homes (and) we have to enforce them.”

He continued: “And when we speak of latrines and outside toilets, if it’s not good for Bahamians and it must not be not good anywhere. Another thing (is) we must do it in a humane and respectful way.

“But it can’t be when we are looking to give housing to police officers, to teachers and garbage men that we could have persons who just come to the country and decide to build anywhere. We have to address this problem. It is the elephant in the room and everyone knows about it and some of them in that community vote for us.”

 Disclosure

Mr Johnson  commended Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis for moving to ensure that politicians disclose their assets. He said the government will also amend the Public Disclosure Act to broaden the scope to include campaign finance reform and to make provision for direct referral to an independent prosecutor.

He said: “In the past administration there was this whole accusation that some persons saw service in government as an opportunity to benefit. And we must be accountable to the Bahamian people by speaking to issues such as campaign finance reform.

“I quite recall when I was campaigning there were persons who offered me funds,” the Yamacraw MP said. “I said I can’t accept it because I have an obligation to the Bahamian people and it keeps us accountable and it’s not nothing strange.

“I want to commend the government of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas that in 2017 we are going to bring legislation to the Bahamas.

“I have a leader who has already started and he has said all parliamentarians must disclose and I want to say publicly that the attorney general and the minister stands ready to do the people’s business,” Mr Johnson also said.

Last week, Press Secretary Anthony “Ace” Newbold said former and sitting parliamentarians who are delinquent on their filings have been given three weeks to file disclosures or face court for breaking the law.

Addressing the matter again yesterday, Mr Newbold said the respective letters were sent out late last week. 

He would not release the names of the persons who have not disclosed but said: “Will they be revealed at some point? Yes. We will see who decided to disclose and I presume, I should not speculate but I presume they will all file.”