Rick Lowe

It's not often I get to watch the proceedings of the House of Assembly or Senate, but managed to watch the presentation by Dr. Duane Sands in the Senate yesterday. His comments in support of a Freedom of Information Act were very good and we will post his speech here on Friday.

However, part of his presentation included the tabling of the Auditor General's "Value for Money Audit Report" on the Ministry of Housing & National Insurance for the years 2002 to 2007, and the only word that came to mind as he read excerpts was "surreal".

Standing to offer the Oppositions point of view, Jerome Fitzgerald proceeded to mock the report and suggested it cleared the former Minister of Housing and National Insurance name from any wrong doing. Emphasising that Mr. Gibson did not take one cent of the publics money or the report would have said so.

Judging from the excerpts Dr. Sands read, the ministry was no less than chaotic and in fact the Auditor General reportedly found that the operation of two of the bank accounts were in "contravention of the law and financial regulations…"

Surely on those counts alone, Mr. Fitzgerald should have offered an apology to The Bahamian people. But instead he chose to laugh about it suggesting that his party was only trying to help Bahamians.

From where I sit, accountability of the political class and civil servants is one of the biggest issues, if not the biggest, facing our country going forward. If we dismiss the Auditor General's report and it's very serious implications so flippantly what does that say about Fitzgerald's sincerity? Hiding behind altruistic rhetoric does not absolve the former MInister or the employees of the Ministry of Housing and National Insurance of the reports findings.

It really is a sad day in our beautiful little country. It leaves me numb.