We have a higher degree of educated Bahamians now than we have ever had before and this has led to people placing themselves above categories of employment.
When there is an outcry by the public, we say what we believe they want to hear. We had a bank in The Bahamas and the principle of this bank, according to information, was giving bribes to various people including high ministers in order to do whatever he was doing in The Bahamas.
Soft loans or gifts, and we knew that, but we did nothing about it. I had a case that came before me and I’m eliminating names. The gentleman was wanted for tax fraud or something in his country of origin. It came to my notice because the police received a note from Interpol, and we are a member of Interpol, a request for their help in apprehending this gentleman.
So they brought the matter to me and I said to them well you better call him in and tell him what you have here and say to him he should go back home and clear this matter up and come back; we have nothing against him and he did nothing wrong in The Bahamas.
So they called him in and he said he didn’t do it. My instruction then was, fine, he may be right but he should go home and clear it up, then come back. But, he said he was not going home, so I said well you can’t stay here.
So he was forced to leave here and two weeks after I was no longer Minister of National Security he was back in town.
Now we will pay for that, when we pay for it though we forget how this thing all came about. And I am saying that is why you have to have rules for your police force, your immigration officer, your customs officer, because when he does something wrong it may affect you way up there. I believe that even the average fellow who does wrong recognises that he has done wrong, and when he is caught, if he is caught, he is satisfied that he is going to be punished.
I know fellows, people don’t know me, they say they probably know me, they say I don’t mix and I’m selfish and all that, probably true but one of the reasons for that is it keeps me out of problems. I remember on a Tuesday when you come out of Cabinet, you go in the parking lot and you hold another cabinet meeting in the parking lot, but I discovered the one time that I stayed behind to do this, I discovered that all members of the public came in and were taking part in these discussions, with all these strange people listening in to this thing.
So what I used to do, I would come as soon as Cabinet was out I would dash downstairs, get in my car and take off. I just kept out of the way all together.
We go to church and we preach in church, as soon as we get out of church we forget we’ve been in church. And that applies not only to politicians, it applies to the preacher too now, he forgets he’s been in church. You know and I may have said this to you before, 99.9 percent of the people in Fox Hill Prison are black, young men. When I came to Nassau in the ’50s, that was not so, there were white Bahamians in prison, there were black Bahamians in prison but the Chief Justice was white, the Commissioner of Police was white, the Governor was white, the Attorney-General was white.
Today, they’re all black and 99.9 percent of the people in prison are black and the .1 percent are foreigners who are there on some immigration matter or some drug matter or something like that.
Now all leaders ought to think about that, instead of worrying about building more prisons, they should think about why that is so.
We must be doing something wrong and this ain’t nothing to do with the PLP or the FNM.
This happens to be our leaders, I’m talking about our leaders have strayed away and we say one thing out there and we’re doing another thing over here. As long as that is so our immigration problem ain’t going to be solved.
We’ll find a way to make the fellow who is here illegally; we find a way to fix him up for him to be here legally.
We’re not even worried about the long-term consequences of an enormous influx of illegal people on the Bahamian society where you’re going to get a minority group in your country.
The Nassau Guardian
