The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas Bar Council wants the director of public prosecutions to justify the hiring of two foreign lawyers to top-level posts at the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and is not inclined to give the lawyers entry into the Bahamas Bar without adequate justification, The Tribune understands.

Nigerian Nikiruka Jones-Nebo and Ugandan David Bakibinga have been working at the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions for more than two months as the deputy director of public prosecutions and the assistant director of public prosecutions.

However, to argue cases in court, they must be called to the Bahamas Bar. Their applications were discussed during a recent bar council meeting, but have not been approved or put on the council’s agenda, this newspaper understands.

Mrs Jones-Nebo and Mr Bakibinga’s appointments have upset some lawyers, including those at the Office of the Attorney General who believe Bahamians could have been appointed to the posts.

Wayne Munroe, member of the Bar Council, said yesterday the body should assure itself that the positions were properly advertised to qualified Bahamians and that the applicants have been properly vetted.

“Part of it has to do with whether they are fit and proper persons,” he said when contacted for comment. “There was a Bahamian chap who we admitted to the Bar because he was admitted to the Bar in England and we came to find out that there was an issue with his call in England and he was subsequently disbarred in England. Now if something like that could happen and that was a Bahamian from the Bahamas who spent most of his life in the Bahamas, that gave me some kind of pause that when we dealing with people we have to be vigilant.”

The permanent secretary in the Attorney General’s office, Cecilia Strachan, said in June that vacancies for the senior posts were first advertised in local media in January 2017, but the persons who applied did not meet the criteria. She said the positions were subsequently advertised internationally in January 2018 through the Commonwealth Secretariat. Six people applied and were interviewed by senior OAG officials who later made a recommendation to the Judicial and Legal Services Commission.

Mr Munroe said: “We have prosecutors prosecuting every day in the courts, appearing every day in the Court of Appeal. What is so special about these people, other than them being foreigners? How is this supposed to affect the morale of the prosecutors in the Office of the DPP? Why is no one qualified? We know them, we practice on the other side of them, they’re very capable, and now you’re going to have foreigners coming in who don’t have a clue about the local circumstances. A lot of prosecutions have to do with things that happen locally. If you hear that somebody walking through a yard in Toote Shop Corner gon’ cause people to wake up in the night, you believe when somebody tell you that but nobody else gon’ believe that, if you know about Toote Shop Corner. So we will now have two foreigners who have to learn about us in order to function in the factual environment that is litigation in court. I don’t hold the poor view of the Office of the DPP that clearly these other people hold. I practice on the opposite side of these people and they’ve showed themselves capable.”

Other lawyers, nonetheless, have repeatedly emphasized the OAG’s struggle to retain top talent over the years. Mr Munroe said this raises another issue: the need for the government to be transparent about the terms of employment for foreigners.

“We found out with engineers in the Ministry of Works,” he said, “that they advertise the post locally and let’s say it comes with a renumeration of $75,000. When you hire a foreigner the remuneration is $75,000 but they get housing allowance and children’s school fees covered so when you add it up what you’re paying the foreigner is $150,000. So if you advertised the job as $150,000 to the Bahamians, you might have gotten a better response. That is a notorious thing that happens at the Ministry of Works.”