Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Chairman Bradley Roberts called on Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis and the Free National Movement (FNM) to “atone for their sins’ and apologize for introducing political violence to The Bahamas, which can be traced back to 1972.
Roberts called for Dr. Minnis and the FMN’s atonement and apology yesterday, which follows the prime minister’s recent request for the PLP and the opposition leader to apologize for the mistakes made while in office.
“Minnis must also not be allowed to get away with this nonsense about the PLP should apologize. The FNM is in no moral position to demand an apology from anybody. They should be busy atoning for their sins perpetrated on the Bahamian people. The devil cannot get away with calling everybody else a sinner while his sins go unchallenged and unpunished,” Roberts said.
“The devil is always in the details just as the devil is in fact a liar.
“Since Dr. Minnis and the FNM are so gung-ho and insistent on apologies, Minnis should practice what he preaches and apologize on behalf of the FNM for introducing political violence to The Bahamas as far back as the run up to the 1972 general election, a pivotal and turning point in our history and political development where we marred our democracy with fire bombings and political intimidation that led to politically motivated murder.
“He should also apologize for sitting around the Cabinet table and giving away our national patrimony, BTC, for a song in a fire sale. While he is at it, he should offer a contrite apology for the role the FNM played in that international embarrassment called the BEC bribe scandal. The FNM appointed board chose the South Korea Company to supply diesel generators to the former BEC, but the Ingraham Cabinet chose Alstrom, the French energy giant.
“Had it not been for the transnational criminal investigative work of the U.S. Department of Justice, this evil the FNM government perpetrated on the Bahamian people would have been conveniently swept under the carpet forever. This revelation was a source of grief and international embarrassment to the Bahamian people and further, to add insult to injury the inferior engines have cost the Bahamian tax payers and companies hundreds of millions due to poor performance in addition to much pain and suffering.”
Roberts noted that the national embarrassment does not stop there because “Dr. Minnis, in the grand and corrupt tradition of former FNM Health Ministers Dr. Ronald Knowles and Brent Symonette is a self-dealer, having given himself a fat contract while serving as a cabinet minister.”
He also claimed that Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture Michael Pintard was caught in a murder for hire plot that forced him to resign as a senator in disgrace.
“Only God Almighty knows how Pintard can be deemed unfit to sit in the Senate, but deemed fit to sit in the Lower House,” Roberts explained. “The assortment of characters that make up the Minnis team are poster children for corrupt conduct.”
The PLP chairman also claimed that Minister of Tourism Dionisio D’Aguilar was caught conspiring with Jonathan Ash to defraud customs in the amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars, not once but twice.
“The PLP again calls on this so called ‘honest and transparent’ Minnis government to cause for a forensic audit of the Super Wash account with the Bahamas Customs Department to ascertain the extent of the fraud and let the chips fall where they may,” Roberts said.
He also indicated that the allegations of corruption and misappropriation of funds against current National Insurance Board and Public Service Minister Brensil Rolle while he served as the controller at the Road Traffic Department must be thoroughly investigated and not swept under the carpet by Dr. Minnis.
“What Golden Gates MP Michael Foulkes did to his client in misappropriating client funds in Florida was criminal fraud, but Mr. Foulkes sits in the House as part of Minnis’ parliamentary caucus legislating laws for the Bahamian people. The legal ruling by the Florida Supreme Court is a matter of public record,” Roberts added.
“At some point Dr. Minnis must have ‘come to Jesus’ moment and address each of these allegations against his current members of his parliamentary caucus and Cabinet. Avoiding these issues will not make them go away.”
Roberts also explained that if Bahamians want to fully appreciate the “rank and in-your-arrogance and hypocrisy and criminal tendencies of the FNM, just watch their response to accounts of their national transgressions.”
“They ignore them, deny them, lie about them and seek to rewrite history about them,” Roberts added.
“The FNM will dig your eye out while denying any knowledge of the same. They are the adulterous woman King Solomon described in the book of Proverbs: ‘Such is the way of the adulterous woman. She eateth, wipeth her mouth and says I have done no wickedness.’ They continue to prance around like peacocks telling the Bahamian people they are as pure as the driven snow while pointing the finger of accusation at everybody else.
“Minnis must deal honestly with the corruption within his ranks first before pointing the finger. If he says he is cleaning corruption in government, then he must act accordingly. This political charade and PR [public relations] stunt he is orchestrating is nothing more than a corrupt abuse of state power to persecute his political opponents for purely political reasons.
“I call on Prime Minister Minnis to tell Bahamians if the court imposed penalty and fine were paid by former FNM Senator Fred Ramsey?”
