As is its practice, the Institute for Economic Freedom circulated for comment the draft of its letter on The Rule of Law and Bahamian Culture prior to its release to the media. The following is one of the E-mail responses:
(Start of Reply)
Good piece! But I disagree. In our context is there -any validity- to the point that the majority wants anything different than the absolute protection of the criminal?
Paul Major of Bahamasair confirmed in a speech this week to Rotary of the -scams- that he has found going on ranging from selling of fuel to other parties, employees selling free tickets with up-front charges etc., etc.
Tiefing throughout our wholesale and retail trades is expanding and all we do is grumble and scream that prices are going up.
Government wishes to self-investigate itself as in the Prison breakouts by the Cubans. With regard to the recent spate of deaths, the Coroner dealt with those.
There is the $135,000 at Bahamasair that is unaccounted for and the $5 million school that was found to be in a serious condemnable state of disrepair, a school only 2-years old. With regard to Cable Bahamas, ZNS and the Internet, what is the truth?
Although the Institute may be correct, it is really trying to blow a hurricane away as the understanding of what is -right and what is wrong- is simply unknown today throughout our Peoples.
Does the Institute really think that if the AGs office had processed some of the requests for criminal information on allegations of Money Laundering (say 25%) the OECD would have reacted differently? Are not the OFC Laws of Hong Kong similar to those if not a copy of ours but has Hong Kong been blacklisted? With 300 applications on the desk of the AG and just a simple set-response letter and not one single application processed, what can we expect?
In my last look at the ILO Conventions I noted that The Bahamas has not ratified many of them…in fact, possibly only those as far back as the 1956-60 era. We sign-up but that-s that. In the case of the Minimum Wage for example I do not think we have even signed that ILO Convention.
A point the Institute just might add to the end:
“We complain about the cost of operations at Bahamasair, Batelco and other governmental bodies. We recognize the stealing and the various scams. However there is no national acceptance on a personal level to stop this bloodletting that has corrupted the whole of Bahamian society.
“Now it seemingly has overflowed into the international arena with the -blacklisting- of The Bahamas. The average Bahamian should now be aware that what is accepted as everyday life has significant negative consequences that they can justifiably fear. Suddenly 1 plus 2 plus 3 may equal 6.”
I hope it is so!
(End of Reply.)
