Madame speaker, I rise on behalf of the Grants Town Constituency, to make a brief intervention in this debate on the amendments to the IBC Bill, the FIU Bill and the FTR Bill, on this day of our Lord, December 27, 2000.

Madame speaker, some may say that it is a sign of vigilance that this Parliament would seek to meet during this or any Yule tide season. However Madame speaker, for those who celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, many would call it sacrilegious and in fact atheistic that Parliamentarians would be summoned to this august chamber at such a time, when by and large the Christian world stands in awe and holy sacrifice at what Jesus Christ has done for mankind.

Madame speaker, it is to this end that I find it to be the height of stupidity that we, the representatives of a so-called Christian nation, should be here at all, except for the declaration of war or an act of God. And yet Madame speaker, why should I be surprised that we are here today? For this is a country that has leadership who sees nothing wrong with Sunday shopping existing as a normal and full working day of the week and this is a country whose leadership shuns church settings, as if being saved is tantamount to catching a deadly disease.

Likewise Madame speaker, while this is a country led by atheistic views, it stuns me that some men of God would give credence to these anti-Christ views by allowing themselves to be trotted out to lead the charge as set down by this country’s leadership. Madame speaker, these shipwrecked men of God do so knowing that they only have their shirt collars on backwards, in order to sell whatever atheistic and political ideas the leadership of this nation wants the public to accept. Madame speaker, we being here today clearly shows that we have been led astray. The Member for North Abaco clearly demonstrates by summoning us today, that God has no place in his governance of this nation.

Madame speaker, if God gave us this season to celebrate the birth of Christ, what could happen that could cause us to be here today? What could happen that would catch God unaware, that we should be here today, as if any other day after the season would be too late? So Madame speaker, our being here today does show our vigilance. But to the Member for North Abaco’s shame, it shows more glaringly what he thinks about a holy period and what he thinks about Christians honoring that period. Madame speaker, throughout all of recorded Biblical history, never once has the devil caused God to panic and disregard His holy period. So why should we panic and rush to this place today? If God is for us despite the devil being in our midst, who could be against us?

Madame speaker, when we last met in this Parliament on December 13, 2000, we had just finished, or at least it was thought that we had finished passing a slew of Bills at lightening speed that led the people to believe we had concluded that which would enable us to get off of the blacklist. Madame speaker, we met on the 11th, 12th and 13^th just two weeks ago. Those sittings were a culmination of a six-month merry go round of sloppy legislation and amendments and more sloppy legislation and even more amendments. So much in fact, that the ride could make anyone’s head spin.

We have indeed been taken on a psychological merry go round. And Madame speaker, in the course of that ride a number of Cabinet Ministers and their unrealistic perceptions of themselves were brutally tarnished. Madame speaker, during the last sitting of this House, the Member for North Abaco called for a resolution in the event that an emergency would cause this Parliament to meet before our scheduled February 21, 2001 reconvening.

Madame speaker, it has only been two weeks before what the Member for North Abaco calls an emergency, happened, and here we are again. But Madame speaker, what is really the emergency? Madame speaker, what did you see that was in the public’s interest that we meet today? The emergency calling for anti-blacklisting legislation should have been in 1992, when the Member for North Abaco signed away our sovereignty by promising to do what raw force is causing him to do eight years later. Madame speaker, the emergency should have been in October of 1999 when through my series of questions, I warned this House, the government and the nation that international agencies were fed up with this government’s ineptitude and arrogance. Madame speaker, the emergency should have been last June when I spoke about the threat of blacklisting as being eminent.

Madame speaker, we are now blacklisted and may I add, for the first time in this country’s history and it seems the emergency still hasn’t ceased because we are here today seeking again to amend pieces of sloppy legislation that clearly should have been done correctly the first time. And Madame speaker, it may have been done correctly the first time, but that would only been true if in fact this government was the architect of all of these Bills.

But clearly Madame speaker, this government is not the architects, they are merely the delivery boys. They are the messengers. Madame speaker, they are merely the workers in the basement mail room of the big international agencies. Those foreign agencies who occasionally gives this government the latitude to see the legislation, while only being able to change the legislation at the behest of their bosses. And Madame speaker, the Member for North Abaco is the Chief Mail Clerk, with the Member for Montagu as his assistant. Madame speaker, we being here today speaks clearly to this being the only scenario possible.

Madame speaker, I ask you what transpired between December 13, 2000 and today that would bring us here today on a day where we have to drive and walk through a maze of physical structures that are a part of the still ongoing holiday celebrations? Madame speaker, the only thing that I know of that happened was the Minister of Finance going to a FATF Meeting to show them our progress at passing so many Bills. However Madame speaker, the Minister returned from that Miami meeting and we haven’t heard one peep about what happened. Did the Minister of Finance receive good news? If he did he would have summoned the media at breakneck speed to make such a proclamation. Was the media curious about the results of the Finance Minister’s meetings?

Madame speaker, we don’t know if the FATF patted the Minister on his head and said, "good boy." Or whether they shook up his pants and said, "go home and get back to work." But yet Madame speaker, here we are today smack in the middle of the biggest spiritual holiday of the year besides Easter and we are debating again something to do with the pressure brought to bear on us by this government’s negligence and the dictates of their foreign masters. Madame speaker, the utter contempt and scorn shown to the Bahamian people throughout these last six months of sloppy and irrational legislation and haphazard amendments, plus our meeting today during this holiday season speaks loudly to the Member of North Abaco’s blatant disrespect for God and man. And while I don’t agree with us being here today, I made sure to be here just to treat this sitting with the righteous indignation it deserves as we debate these amendments.

Likewise Madame speaker, this government’s attitude also points to something else. It points to their commitment to foreign agencies and their willingness to do whatever these agencies want, notwithstanding the disruption it causes to the minds, hearts and lives of Bahamians. Madame speaker, the people want to know what transpired between our last meeting on December 13, The Finance Minister going away and us being here today at an emergency sitting over something that is not an emergency? Madame speaker, I heard the excuse of amendments being found to be necessary while the Bills were in the Senate. But the question is why didn’t the government see this coming?

Madame speaker, if as the Member for North Abaco said he had wide consultation with Bahamian professionals, or in his words, those few that are not crooks, why would these amendments just now be recognized as being needed? Madame speaker, the Member for North Abaco has many perverse twists and turns to his mindset of governance and when he put in a resolution to have an emergency meeting, what did he know that we didn’t know? Is the Member for North Abaco so consumed with pleasing his masters that he put in place a resolution to meet, just in case his masters had a whim that they wanted to direct him to change something in the legislation we’ve debated?

Madame speaker, sometimes persons who will do anything for power and are shipwrecked morally can become programmed to such an extent and so compromised that their masters don’t even have to tell them what to do. Those morally weak persons just automatically do what they think their masters want them to do.

Madame speaker, the Member for North Abaco has to stop treating his governance like he’s running the affairs of his home, where what he does is not the public’s business. He is not doing his private business in here. What he does for and on behalf of this nation is the public’s business and he can try to avoid that reality as much as he likes. And Madame speaker, he can give us illogical reasons as to why we are here today as much as he likes. Unless the Member for North Abaco comes clean and tells the Bahamian people the truth about this whole blacklisting affair and what he promised foreign powers, his actions will never be consistent with his words.

Madame speaker, the Member for North Abaco has not been open concerning his approach to these anti-blacklisting Bills. He has not been transparent about the rush to pass these Bills. He has not been accountable, at least not to Bahamians, as to why he really walked us down this path of doom. So Madame speaker, the real question is, who ordered the Member for North Abaco to get back to work during the Christmas Holiday, when even his masters are not working? Madame speaker, I suspect the true answer to that question will be the best Christmas gift Bahamians could ever receive, because then at last they will finally know the truth about who runs the present government of the Bahamas.

AMENDMENTS TO BILLS

Madame speaker, for the time being I have only one concern about the amendments to these Bills. I say for the time being, because as with most legislation brought to this place by the FNM Government, I suspect we will return to make more corrections again and again. And when one adds to that the fact that this government is being dictated to by foreign persons who don’t know all the nuances of our laws, I suspect we will return to these pieces of legislation and others sooner then you may think.

However Madame speaker, with respects to the amendments to the Financial Transaction Reporting Bill, it calls for the establishment of a Compliance Commission. More importantly Madame speaker, it requires the consultation of many groups, which includes; surprise, surprise—the Bahamas Bar Council and the Bahamas Institute of Chartered Accountants. Madame speaker, I said surprise surprise, because for any sane person they must be surprised that these two professions are now included as groups to be consulted.

Madame speaker, I find the government’s decision in this amendment to include these two groups to be consistent with the bizarre, dishonest and inept approach they use to their overall governance. Madame speaker, I say this because when one recalls the recent statement made by the Member for North Abaco regarding lawyers and accountants as being crooks, this about face would be laughable, if it was not a stupid and insulting statement to have been made in the first place. Likewise Madame speaker, his statement would be laughable if those professionals were not such an integral part of the fueling of our economy. But Madame speaker, I guess the Member for North Abaco’s masters didn’t find it laughable and told him in no uncertain terms that he had better include those two professions.

I likewise Madame speaker will now tell the Member for North Abaco in no uncertain terms that he had better apologize forthwith to those professionals who he tainted and painted in mass as being crooked. Or he will hear from me. However Madame speaker, I would like to make it clear that I readily acknowledge that there are some rotten apples amongst those professions and they must have the moral authority to move from their ranks those rotten apples. And to that end I suggest that those professionals contact the Minister of Housing. Perhaps he can find employment for those malcontents in the law profession as he did for himself and one Ortland Bodie Jr.

GOVERNMENT CREDIBILITY AND INTERNATIONAL AGENCIES

Madame speaker, it is my understanding that the various international agencies will be watching very closely the implementation of the various pieces of anti-blacklisting legislation to see how aggressive the government is at administering these new laws.

But Madame speaker, I wonder how this FNM Government is being viewed by international agencies, if one is looking from a national security and corruption-free perspective. Madame speaker, how are international agencies looking at this government when:

• THEY CANNOT PROPERLY SAFEGUARD HER MAJESTY’S PRISON FROM BREAKOUTS.
• THEY CANNOT PRODUCE A REPORT ON THE CONTINUED BREAKOUTS FROM HER MAJESTY’S PRISON.
• THEY CANNOT PREVENT PRISONERS FROM ESCAPING IN BROAD DAYLIGHT IN THE AREA OF THE COURTS.
• THEY CANNOT PREVENT IDIOTIC REMARKS ABOUT SUCH BREAKOUTS FROM HER MAJESTY’S PRISON BY THE MINISTER OF IMMIGRATION AND LABOR
• THEY CANNOT REPORT ON 200 MISSING WORK PERMITS FROM THE IMMIGRATION DEPARTMENT
• THEY ARE NOT ABLE TO GET THE POLICE TO COMPLETE A LONG-OVERDUE AND PROMISED INVESTIGATION INTO DRUG TRAFFICKING AND THE USE OF DRUG PROCEEDS TO BUILD A HOTEL AND MARINA IN LONG ISLAND.
• THEY CANNOT EXPLAIN HOW THE DPM IS STILL SITTING AS MINISTER OF NATIONAL SECURITY, WHEN THE MEMBER FOR LONG ISLAND SAID HE TOLD THE MINISTER ABOUT THE DRUG TRAFFICKERS IN LONG ISLAND, BUT THE MINISTER OF NATIONAL SECURITY SAID HE KNEW NOTHING ABOUT IT. AND:
• THEY ARE UNABLE TO RETRIEVE $135,000 IN MISSING MONEY FROM A BAHAMASAIR PLANE DEAL GONE SOUR, DESPITE THE PROMISE OF THEMEMBER FOR NORTH ABACO TO PERSONALLY INTERVENE.

CONCLUSION

Madame speaker, while on the subject of credibility winning out over the challenges of guile, intellectual dishonesty and sickness of heart, I’m informed that the Member for Yamacraw called me big-mouth when she stammered and trembled through her contribution on December 13, two weeks ago. However Madame speaker, the Honorable Attorney General did not answer all of the direct questions that I asked her. That being the case, when we meet again in the new year, I will cut to the chase and bring those answers for her to my questions. Maybe she felt she didn’t have to answer all of my questions because her leader answered nothing concerning my questions about shady affairs, or as he calls it, crooked acts, when he was a rarely employed lawyer.

But suffice it to say for now, the ancient trick about daring someone to say outside of this Parliament, what they say in here; I remind the Member for Yamacraw that I do not have a yellow streak on my back or any part of my body. Any thing that I, the Member for Grants Town says in this House or any question I ask in this House, surely I can do the same outside. No member of this place should ever make a mistake where I am concerned and believe that I am of the ilk of those on the government side. I don’t need to have anyone tell me what I had better say and what I had better not say. But Madame speaker, I wonder if the Member for Yamacraw has the credibility, decency, or purity of heart to say the same. We shall see early in the new year.

Madame speaker, as for the Member for Yamacraw calling me big-mouth, I respectfully suggest to her that she takes a look much closer to her at her leader, who may equally qualify. However the Member for Yamacraw calling me big-mouth reminded me of the story of Sir Winston Churchill, who attended a party and may have had one drink too many. His actions that evening was disconcerting to one of the so-called distinguished ladies. The so-called distinguished lady accosted Sir Winston about his behavior and said, "Sir Winston you are drunk and despicable." Now maybe he would have said something stately, but when he looked and saw whom it was that made this statement, in reply Sir Winston said to her, "Madame you are ugly, however tomorrow I will be sober and you Madame will still be ugly."

Madame speaker, I have used this story to illustrate that I may be a big-mouth, but I am not criminally minded and tomorrow it is possible that I may be quiet, but the criminally minded will still be criminal.

MADAME SPEAKER, ON BEHALF OF THE GRANTS TOWN CONSTITUENCY, I THANK YOU.