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This Week in Bahamian Parliament
By Elcott Coleby
Dec 10, 2016 - 9:17:10 PM

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Nassau, Bahamas - The House of Assembly met on Wednesday, December 7th to table and debate the Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information Bill, 2016. What transpired shortly after the Lower House convened took every honourable House member save for seven by complete surprise.

Reading a letter delivered to him by certain members of the opposition, House speaker the Hon. Dr. Kendal Major read into the House records a request of the Governor General by seven opposition members to remove opposition leader the Hon. Dr. Hubert Minnis from that statute post and replace him with Long Island MP the Hon. Loretta Butler-Turner. The letter referred to Aritcle 82(4) of The Bahamas Constitution as justification for this unprecedented move. The seven members felt that Dr. Minnis was unfit to lead the organization; he was ineffective and a failure as the opposition leader and the caucus had lost confidence in his ability to lead them.

The letter was signed by Butler-Turner, Dr. Andre Rollins (Fort Charlotte), Richard Lightbourn (Montague), Hubert Chipman (Saint Annes), Theo Neilly (North Eleuthera), Neko Grant (Central Grand Bahama) and Edison Key (South Abaco).

In his response to the House, Killarney MP and opposition leader conceded that he was caught off guard by the political ambush and said he was “saddened” that colleagues were prepared to “subvert democracy and take their way because they could not get their way in a democratic process.”

Speaking of the multiple leadership votes at the party level (the latest taking place in July of this year), Dr. Minnis said “we had gone through a democratic process within our organization, but we had individuals who attempted to subvert that democratic process.”

He called the group of seven “rebels,” stating that he was still the captain as he asserted that “democracy will always rule in The Bahamas. As I stand here as the leader of the opposition until they carry the letter to the Governor General, the leader of the Free National Movement, who was democratically elected to such a position, the FNM will democratically move toward a democratic electoral process.”

As for the bill, the mover was State Minister for Finance the Hon. Michael Halkitis and it was seconded by the Minister for Financial Services and Local Government the Hon. Hope Strachan. The bill effectively facilitates the implementation of the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) and due diligence for financial account information on tax matters as driven by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The Bahamas is committed to implementing the Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) standard by December 2018 with the first automatic exchange of tax information scheduled to take place no later than September 2018.

In her contribution to the bill, Minister for Financial Services and Local Government the Hon. Hope Strachan revealed to the House that the government had selected the implementation taskforce to facilitate this automatic exchange of tax information. Stakeholders include the host Ministry – the Ministry of Finance; the coordinating Ministry – the Ministry of Financial Services; the Office of the Attorney General; the Bahamas Financial Services Board (BFSB) and other industry representatives.

Fox Hill MP and Foreign Affairs Minister the Hon. Fred Mitchell stood on a point of privilege to respond to specific allegations contained in an article published under the name of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about Ministers of the Bahamas Government. In the article posted on the website EcoWatch, it is alleged, in part, that “developer-friendly Cabinet ministers are attacking the rule of law, stomping on privacy rights, and savaging judges, lawyers and environmental and human rights organizations”.

He told House members that the article in question resulted from allegations made in the House that the organization which calls itself Save The Bays (STB) is being funded by monies from a foreign national designed to destabilize the government of The Bahamas. Mitchell “categorically” denied that he or any minister of the Government “hacked into any emails” or attempted to have environmentalists from Save The Bays (STB) arrested.

Mr. Mitchell denounced the allegations in the statement as materially false, defamatory against government ministers and told House members that the matter had been referred to the House Committee on Privilege for further investigation because that Committee has an obligation to follow the money trail and see what the real objectives of Save The Bays are.

In other parliamentary news, the four senators appointed by Dr. Hubert Minnis resigned on Wednesday in the wake of the letter of revocation signed by seven dissenting parliamentarians from the Opposition caucus. Tendering their resignations were senators Dr. Duane Sands, Carl Bethel, Kwasi Thompson and Monique Gomez.


About the author: Elcott Coleby is a Deputy Director at the Bahamas Information Services. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry (B.Sc) and a Masters of Business Administration (MBA). He provides frequent commentary on public policy and communicates the works of the government. Address all comments to the following email: egcoleby44@gmail.com




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