By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

FREE National Movement chairman Darron Cash said Bahamians should be reminded of the government’s decision last year to appoint numerous politicians and past parliamentarians to government boards like the National Insurance Board and the Water & Sewage Corporation Board.

Mr Cash had previously criticised the selections last year when they were announced.

But in a press statement yesterday he once again noted that whereas 40 per cent of persons appointed to 20 government boards under the former FNM administration were parliamentarians or former parliamentarians, 80 per cent of persons appointed to government boards under the PLP administration have been parliamentarians or former parliamentarians.

“What is abundantly clear from the board appointments by the PLP administrations is that politicians are playing the dominant role on the boards,” he said.

“This is a throw back to those heady days of the PLP when such appointments were part and parcel of a pervasive patronage system and one intended to disempower the citizenry by limiting their involvement in government by controlling every aspect of decision-making.”

“By having high level politicians lead most boards, the PLP ensured that its political wishes and patronage was exacted with impunity. Very often, favour and fear dominated the work of boards with the ultimate aim of keeping the PLP in power.”

“One expects that politics will play a role in the appointment of boards, but this return to political domination in the leadership of the boards is a step backward in a 21st century Bahamas.

“It contradicts the prime minister’s claim of being a bridge to the future.”