Gomez says constituency business has kept him from filing petitions against FNM duo

Thursday, September 10, 2015

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

LEGAL Affairs Minister Damian Gomez yesterday insisted that he was not backing away from his declaration to file Election Court petitions to declare the Long Island and Killarney seats vacant over alleged conflicts of interest.

However, Killarney MP Dr Hubert Minnis said he was not concerned about Mr Gomez’s proposed filing. Long Island MP Loretta Butler-Turner has maintained that the legal affairs minister had a “baseless case”.

Yesterday, Mr Gomez told The Tribune that the petitions had not been filed because he was busy in his constituency distributing school bags and other supplies to hundreds of children.

On August 23, the Central and South Eleuthera MP revealed he would file the petitions that same week to have the two opposition seats vacated.

However, he later said he would fulfil his threat the next week, by September 4, because he had been sidetracked helping his constituency prepare for the expected wrath of Tropical Storm Erika.

Yesterday, Mr Gomez was asked to respond to critics who say he appears to have relaxed his once aggressive stance to tackle parliamentarians’ compliance with the Constitution.

“I haven’t had any time to deal with it,” Mr Gomez said yesterday. “I have been focusing on my constituency. In due course everyone will be informed. Their (critics) perception will be clarified after I have done what I said I will do.”

While she had initially said she would file a lawsuit against Mr Gomez for character defamation, yesterday the Long Island MP said her legal team was waiting for Mr Gomez to file the petitions to understand the parameters of his case. She said her main concern was Mr Gomez’s attempt to impugn her character.

Said Mrs Butler-Turner: “The reality is that Damian Gomez has been relying on Clause 49 of our Constitution and it is not clear how he hopes to capture me in not disclosing something that I am not even a party to.

“Also the government has ostensibly removed itself away from his ludicrous assertions against me and he later indicated that he was doing this petition on his own. My belief is that he has found himself in a precarious position with his own colleagues and their apparent conflicts, so he resorted to deflecting his attention to me but erroneously so.

“Obviously with further investigation he has been slapped with the reality that he has absolutely no basis for an argument against me. That is why he has not filed anything,” Mrs Butler-Turner said.

Yesterday Dr Minnis said he was not concerned about this case, rather his concern was for the well being of this country under the Progressive Liberal Party’s leadership.

Mr Gomez’s accusations against Dr Minnis stem from resurfaced allegations that the former minister of health had a contract with the Public Hospitals Authority while he was in Cabinet.

The contract remains in place on a month-to-month basis.

Dr Minnis has said he disclosed the contract during his tenure as a minister, with

FNM Senator Carl Bethel saying Dr Minnis also disclosed the matter in the House of Assembly. Dr Minnis has also said he asked the PHA to move out of his company’s building while he was minister of health, however the agency reportedly has issues finding a suitable replacement.

Mrs Butler-Turner has denied that she has any shares in any company that has a contract with the government.

Comments

BDN says...

Bullsh!tt3rs..

Posted 10 September 2015, 2:43 p.m. Suggest removal

shortpants says...

Start with your PM and than we will know you mean business, other than that relax and wait for you'll cutass 2017.

Posted 10 September 2015, 2:51 p.m. Suggest removal

Emac says...

Real clown. If ya look up the definition of 'fake' in the dictionary, DG's name would be next to it. It is so sad that these so called leaders are who our young people have to emulate. This PLP crew just don't get it. Those old time politricking just don't work anymore.

Posted 10 September 2015, 3:28 p.m. Suggest removal

ThisIsOurs says...

Oh, he did speak...

Posted 10 September 2015, 3:48 p.m. Suggest removal

TalRussell says...

The Tribune can at least put a disclaimer before reading Comrade Damian's, threats issued against members red party; "You have to have a sense of humor, if you read the following by minister Damian."

Posted 10 September 2015, 5:53 p.m. Suggest removal

iamcitizen says...

Boy, all he said was that the government is not being serious about battling outright corruption by serving politicians and that no administration to date has dealt with corruption in Bahamian politics.
Why are you people reminding him about a drug lord he represented in an extradition case and who bankrolled his election campaign in South Eleuthera!!! What's wrong with that?
Then when his drug lord client's extradition case came up again and Allyson said that the Attorney General's copies of the files went missing and then after he offered his resignation as Minister and the Prime Minister refused to accept it and he stayed on as Minister you'll looking at him funny again. Man. he can't please you'll!!
If that wasn't enough you'll still talking bout how he and Allyson hightailed it out of town and left Jerome to do the dirty work in letting Allyson's client who was before the Courts for smuggling guns and ammunition go free. What was wrong with that???
To tell you'll the truth, he's really been looking for corruption and conflicts of interest in the PLP but he hasn't found any. He even Investigated Perry, Allyson, Brave, Shane, Fitzgerald, Bradley, Dorsett, Forbes, etc., and their families to see if they had any leases and contracts with Baha Mar, China Construction and the sale of the Hilton Hotel to the Chinese and Bradley, again, in connection with the 1989 BEC bribery case.
He did not find a single case of corruption and conflict of interest. Not one!! Because in the PLP corruption and conflict of interest are viewed as instruments through which PLPs secure their entitlements. So how you'll expect him to expose something which does not exist in his party?
You'll unfair now. You'll could have, at the very least, given him credit for finding corruption in the FNM!!! LOL!

http://tribune242.com/users/photos/2015…

Posted 10 September 2015, 6 p.m. Suggest removal

Well_mudda_take_sic says...

Is he really all that different from his father? May be they will both end up going to that place for all eternity where the only number that counts is 666!

Posted 10 September 2015, 7:58 p.m. Suggest removal

Wideawake says...

Sometimes I think that PLP politicians think they are back in the 50's when all a politician had to do was wear a suit and tie, or a lawyers wig and the funny out of date clothes that our lawyers wear, and then smile with a s--t eating grin and get instant respect!! ....No matter what B/S they spouted!!

Well HELLO PLP politicians! ... it is 2015..we have moved on, we are educated, many of us as well or better than you!! We read the papers, watch TV on BOTH local stations, we listen to the radio and hear the multitudes of political pundits blowing holes in your hot air balloons of lies and spin!!

We have smart phones, and we follow your critics who point out your transgressions, and we see, hear and smell the cartloads of B/S you spew forth! We are ON TO YOU!! We know what you have been doing!

Please, please, call an early election, because we cannot wait to vote your rotten backsides out of the H.O.A.! and then we are going to mount the biggest campaign of Commissions of Enquiry that this little country has ever seen!

Do NOT rest easy, do NOT think you have us fooled! You cannot run, you cannot hide! Be rightfully uneasy, tremble in anticipation, because your corrupt days in power are numbered!

Posted 10 September 2015, 8:33 p.m. Suggest removal

Honestman says...

Ha,ha,ha........sorry...ha,ha,ha,........my sides are splitting........ha,ha,ha!

Posted 11 September 2015, 2:24 p.m. Suggest removal

Check today's Punch, full page spread (ad)!!!!

Posted 11 September 2015, 3:55 p.m. Suggest removal