By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

DR HUBERT Minnis yesterday called on Prime Minister Phillip “Brave” Davis to “investigate” the reason why he was not invited to police Commissioner Clayton Fernander’s handover ceremony on Tuesday.

“The Commissioner of Police was sworn in yesterday and many people, I’ve been told, were asking the question of why was I not (there),” the former Prime Minister said in the House of Assembly yesterday.

 Dr Minnis continued: “Besides being bed ridden with COVID, it seems to be a lack of breakdown of communication because I have not received any invitation and I have not known of such an event until yesterday and this has been a chronic problem and I’ve asked the Prime Minister to investigate that matter because in the past, this was all done by Cabinet.”

 Dr Minnis said he was told the distribution of invitations have now fallen under the remit of the Office of the Prime Minister.

 “For some reason, I have been left off such list. Former Prime Minister (Hubert) Ingraham was present. Former Prime Minister (Perry) Christie was present and only myself was absent in not receiving an invitation. So, it was not that I didn’t want to be there, but besides my illness and I could not be there, an invitation was not received.”

 Mr Fernander and other senior police officers were forced to take accumulated vacation leave and then seconded to minor posts in 2019, under Dr Minnis’ administration.

 Commissioner Fernander was sworn in as the ninth Commissioner of an independent Bahamas during a special ceremony at the Royal Bahamas Police Force headquarters.

 At one point in the ceremony, Mr Fernander fought back tears as he recalled that both his father and brother died not knowing the future of his career with the police force after he was forced into vacation by the former administration in 2019.

 Although the Minnis administration justified the vacation policy by citing fiscal measures, the officers believed the administration simply wanted to sideline them.

 Yesterday, Dr Minnis congratulated Commissioner Fernander in his new role and wished him the best.

 Mr Fernander’s appointment to the post comes at a time when the country has experienced what appears to be an increase in violent crime.

 Yesterday, Dr Minnis renewed his calls for the government to address the escalating crime rate.

 “The level of crime and violence in New Providence is alarming. Last week, there was killing after killing and shooting after shooting. New Providence appears as if it is a gunman’s town with the Davis administration appearing clueless as to how to address the problem.”

 He also took aim at recent comments from National Security Minister Wayne Munroe who told a local daily that Bahamians should brace for more police-involved shootings.

 Dr Minnis said he was “shocked” when he read what Mr Munroe said.

 “What the Minister of National Security is saying is that essentially is nothing can be done. We must ask the question, has he given up and demonstrated that he is unable to handle the situation,” he said

 However, Fort Charlotte MP Alfred Sears rose on a point of order, accusing Dr Minnis of “misconstruing” what the Mr Munroe had said.

 Later in the House of Assembly, Mr Munroe responded to the opposition’s criticism of the government’s response to crime.

 “It’s really rich for persons to talk about an escalation in crime when a strategy of saturation patrols is hampered because you didn’t buy the police cars and so to go on patrol, they have to take patrol cars from the stations. In ten months, we have ordered the cars and they are arriving, and they have started to arrive,” Mr Munroe said.

 Mr Munroe said he also found it amusing that Dr Minnis “had the gall” to congratulate the new Commissioner, considering his alleged actions toward him.

 “He has the gall to congratulate Clayton Fernander being appointed Commissioner of Police and that is just amazing and mindboggling. It is as if they’re erasing the history that on March 21, 2019, then Assistant Commissioner Fernander would’ve been in charge of crime, having been responsible for leading the team that reduced murders to its lowest level and brought crimes to its lowest level. He was then unceremoniously sent to first on leave and then to the Ministry of Health of all places - and this is at a time when Killarney says we were facing security problems. We were facing security problems, but you sidelined the Assistant Commissioner of Police who presided over the massive reduction of crime that that administration took credit for,” Mr Munroe said.