The Tribune

THE question of the illegal treatment of Douglas Ngumi is not at issue. He was locked up for six and a half years illegally – that’s already been ruled on in court. The Bahamas illegally imprisoned him.

During his time in detention, he says he was severely beaten and contracted two diseases. He said as much in testimony to the court.

How much is that worth?

Previously, the Supreme Court awarded him a little over $640,000. He is now challenging that and asking for $11m in restitution.

The previous award ends up giving Mr Ngumi about $100,000 for every year he was locked up.

This is far from the first case where someone has been illegally imprisoned. Indeed, Mr Ngumi’s settlement is largely based on that awarded to another man imprisoned unlawfully. In 1992, Atain Takitota, a Japanese man, was arrested and then spent eight years in the maximum security wing of Fox Hill prison without charge. He was awarded just $500,000 in 2006.

We have seen other cases too, such as Matthew Sewell – and just this year, the government didn’t even have an answer for the court for why it detained seven asylum seekers who had fled from persecution in Cameroon. They were also released.

Why does this keep happening? Certainly, it seems that financial awards such as those to Mr Takitota or to Mr Ngumi are not serving as enough of a rap on the knuckles to make administrations think again.

Part of Mr Ngumi’s compensation was $100,000 given as exemplary damages. That’s the amount that is meant to serve as a deterrent. For depriving someone of their liberty for so long, that hardly seems much of a deterrent at all.

This was a man who could not build a life of his own in that time. He could not live a family life, he could not build a career, he could not travel – all of that was snatched away, illegally.

How much would you value your own liberty at? If you had more than six years of your life taken away from you, how much would you ask in compensation?

For any person treated in this way, it is deeply unfair. It is even worse that as a society, this kind of thing keeps happening over and over again.

There seems to have been no consequences than a payout. No disciplinary measures appear to have been invoked. No officers have been punished for the illegal detention. There seems little interest in dealing with the claims of brutality and abuse in the detention centre.

Some may say the price being asked by Mr Ngumi is high – but it is not nearly so high as the cost to our reputation and our claims of being a Christian nation as failing to stop these incidents from happening over and over again.

Contract clarity

A row has emerged this week about the appointment of a company called Kanoo Pays to process travel health visa payments.

The ruckus is because the company, which received the contract without needing to bid, is associated with Dr Nigel Lewis. Dr Lewis is the co-manager of the Free National Movement’s general election campaign. The Progressive Liberal Party has promptly cried foul.

Tourism Minister Dionisio D’Aguilar is holding his hands up in innocence, and saying he doesn’t know who the shareholders are or their politics.

The speed with which there was a need to find a payment process company meant there couldn’t be a traditional competitive process, his ministry says.

It is fair to scrutinise to ensure that process. All manner of companies have people linked in one way or another to politics in Bahamian society, but it is always best to be clear about how a decision was made so as to dispel any doubts.

It is, however, incredibly bold of the PLP to throw rocks from within their own glasshouse given some of the problems with contracts under their last administration. Do we need to point to such cases as the fire at BAMSI where no insurance was in place, for example?

Whichever party is in power, there should be no suggestion of contracts for political sympathies – and for all the talk about transparency when it comes to the election trail, that is something that should be in place for all our sakes, regardless of who the next government might be.