FNM Tells PM “Come Clean”:

Bahama Journal -
Nassau, Bahamas:

As far as many government and Progressive Liberal Party officials are concerned, the fight involving Mount Moriah MP Keod Smith and Kennedy MP Kenyatta Gibson is a dead issue, but the Free National Movement on Sunday urged Prime Minister Perry Christie to "come clean" on the matter.

Calling the prime minister "distracted" and "indecisive", the FNM said the prime minister still didn’t get it right when he held his press conference on Tuesday to announce that Mr. Smith and Mr. Gibson had resigned from their positions in his administration.

At the time, the prime minister also said the incident between the two men in the Cabinet Office late last month amounted to a "push and shove".

He also announced that a pane of glass in the room where the Cabinet meets was damaged during the incident and the cost to fix it would be $49.50, but later in the evening, his press officer, Al Dillette, informed the media that the accurate figure for the repair was $769 and the prime minister did not have the total figure on hand during his press conference.

"What was he thinking?" the FNM asked in its statement, referring to the prime minister. "He must have sat in that room at least three times since the incident in addition to inspecting the room the day after. Did he have to be told that Bahamians would not buy the $50 story? So he should come clean if only on this one point."

In its statement, the FNM accused the prime minister of fumbling and bumbling the issue., indecisive handling of the Cabinet room brawl between two of his backbenchers."

The statement added, "It was a travesty from beginning to end."

It added that everybody in the country knew the two men had fought in the Cabinet Office and in the process had damaged government property.

"But to hear them tell it, nothing happened, then nothing much happened, then something unacceptable happened, then there was no fight," the statement said. "Then the press was making a mountain out of a molehill, and so on and so on right up to the end."

Prime Minister Perry Christie had said that reports of the incident had been exaggerated. Joining him in expressing that sentiment was Financial Services and Investments Minister Vincent Peet, who had chaired the parliamentary meeting that had taken place in the Cabinet Office on the night in question.

In the House of Assembly Wednesday night, Mr. Smith reiterated the view, saying the media had made a mountain out of a molehill.

When he appeared as a guest on the Love 97 programme "Issues of the Day" the following day, Mr. Smith said Mr. Gibson had attacked him.

The FNM asked in its Sunday statement, "So, if he was merely defending himself from attack by the bigger man, why does he have to resign? And what was the nature of that attack?"

While on the show on Thursday, Mr. Smith explained that he represents a client who was an employee of the Gaming Board and the client felt that he had been victimized after he had been put on administrative leave.

"He came to me to look into this matter and look into his rights, and I wrote a letter to the chairman of the Gaming Board at the time asking for an explanation as to what took place and basically laying down the line that we had to deal with this matter and if the matter was not dealt with in a specific period of time the matter would have to be taken to court," Mr. Smith explained.

"The chairman of the Gaming Board is of course my colleague and for whatever the reason was, I can’t speak for him, he has to speak for himself, he determined that his way of dealing with that issue was to attack, and as I mentioned in parliament, I am not a violent aggressor and I am 42 year old…I don’t pick fights, at least not physical fights, but I do have the capacity to defend myself which is what I did, but certainly as far as matters go, it certainly did not get to the point where the media and those people who were (escalating it) took it to."

23 October 2006

bahamian politics