Where is the evidence to disprove the claim. The facts are that the money was in their possession, in their bank account and under their control and additional funds were apparently requested. The money was not returned until after the change of government. This begs the question of what would have happened if the government did not change. Misquoted and mis-coded are not accounting terms, and in fact the explanations of former PM and Susan Larson appear to be contradictory.

Let's not forget that The Resolution put before the House also said, "**and whereas one of the beneficial owners of the said Town Centre Mall is a serving Cabinet Minister, who did not take part in the discussions leading to the decision to accept the offer to lease** portions of the building, which will be made suitable for the operations of the General Post Office at the expense of the landlord; which Minister has nonetheless declared his interest; . . .” By Mr. Symonette's own admission to the contrary, serious questions now must be answered as to whether the House was also misled on this material fact as it relates to the conflict of interest the Resolution was designed to remedy.

The premise of this article is legitimate and is certainly a conversation that Bahamian ought to and must have. Where it becomes convoluted and disconnected is the attachment of Brent Symonette as its symbol and poster person. Arguably Mr. Symonette has served the Bahamian people well but we also cannot overlook the fact that he has been forced to resign from public office on two separate occasions for blatant self-dealing to put it nicely. Additionally, everyday more facts are emerging that demonstrates the level and bold audacity of his self-dealing attempts, some successful and some not. In fact I believe that the general Bahamas custom is best described as a general resentment against the success of fellow black Bahamians but white is right and deserving of success. The issue with Mr. Symonette is not his alleged whiteness or his wealth, it is his behavior. Mr. Symonette is not unlike many other Bahamian politicians, black and white, who have done some good but who have also used their office to self-deal and to benefit themselves and their friends. Sadly that is what Bahamian politics has reduced itself to partly because we are just too apathetic and believe hat our only responsibility in a democracy is just to vote every five years. It is this corrupt behavior that is bad economic policy, bad for democracy and has literally robbed the Bahamian people of billions of dollars of the people's assets. What is ironic is that Ms. Philips and Malcolm Strachan in a similar article are calling for an honest and frank discussion of these matters when they arguable are not being honest and frank in presenting the facts or their premise to start this discussion.

Malcolm Strachan in his attempt to bait and switch the Brent Symonette issue said that we should not vilify Mr. Symonette because the white oligarchs have been replaced by black oligarchs that are equally corrupt and have also failed by the Bahamian people.

In his article he stated that “Sadly, the inaugural PLP government were responsible for transforming the culture of Bahamian politics into another kind of ugly – one where friends, family and lovers would benefit. Such a system is what has proliferated Bahamian society today and has been the most injurious to our existence as a people”. This begs the question, who exactly benefited before the inaugural PLP government. Bahamian politics where friends, family and lovers benefited did not start with the PLP Mr. Strachan, the only thing the PLP oligarchs did different was to spread the corrupt spoils to black Bahamians as well unlike the white oligarchs. Corruption and abuse of power whether by black or white oligarchs is wrong and the only losers have been the Bahamian people.

That brings me to this Bahamas Hot Mix issue. I have seen many posts above stating that if both parties benefited then it should be ok. Should that really be the only criteria a government should consider when making economic policy and decisions? If so then why criticize either government for giving contracts to friends, family and lovers because that criteria is almost always met when these contracts are being designed, DUUHH. The facts are that Brent put this proposal and others to the PLP without success, then decided to enter front line politics and once in power put forth the same proposal that would have given him a monopoly over all infrastructural work in the Bahamas to the FNM government, in which he was the most senior Cabinet Minister. Wow! Intent can certainly be inferred from these actions.

This behavior ranks right up there with anything the PLP has done and to the credit of the FNM this was even more than their stomach and political will could bear. It leaves a foul scent in the air, and it is not only morally wrong it is also bad economic policy and bad for democracy. It betrays one of the sacred obligations governments owe to the people it represents, which is to ensure that resources are allocated efficiently and fairly in a society based on some prevailing notion of social and economic justice.

This must be turn back the clock revisionist season. I do agree that there is certainly enough blame to go around with respect to the culpability of our politicians, particularly with respect to the degrading of our political Independence and political legacy with their misguided and unrealistic political promises to the Bahamian people of entitlement, automatic empowerment and riches to be achieved without personal responsibility, sacrifice and hard work. I do also agree that more than anything else these misguided expectations, promises, political duplicity and abuse of power corruption have negatively shaped our collective societal values and beliefs eco-system and have been the cause of significant socio-economic failings and problems in our country.

This is a legitimate and entirely different discussion than the discussion about race in this country. Therefore, to paint the picture of Brent Symonette as a victim of racial profiling is absolutely absurd. Brent is as much a victim of racial profiling as Rodney King is an American civil rights leader. Both may have been physically present at an important historical inflection point, but to put them forth as symbols of racial injustice is just not that simple.

Your article states, “Sadly, the inaugural PLP government were responsible for transforming the culture of Bahamian politics into another kind of ugly – one where friends, family and lovers would benefit. Such a system is what has proliferated Bahamian society today and has been the most injurious to our existence as a people”. If this is what abuse of power looks like when done by the PLP, is this not the exact and identical charge of abuse of power that has been laid to the feet of Mr. Symonette and this FNM government? If we want to start an honest discussion, we should at least start by being honest, fair and objective. The fact that the Cabinet approved these contracts, that by Mr. Symonette’s own admission at least one of them was pre-approved by his business partner the PM before going to Cabinet, only demonstrates that the entire FNM Cabinet is complicit in this sordid affair which your article rightly describes as “the most injurious to our existence as a people”.

Mr. Symonette’s legacy may not be as bad as his critics are claiming but it is also certainly not as pure as your article is claiming. The fact is that Mr. Symonette is among the politicians, black and white, that your article has noted above who have normalized the kind of ugly politics of rent seeking and abuse of political power to benefit himself, friends and family. That my friend has nothing to do with race.

A very clumsy attempt at subterfuge and a false analogy. At issue here is an attempt by the government to justify their decision to rent from one of their fellow Cabinet Ministers. The government opened the door by initiating public discussions with respect to the comparative costs of the Phil's building and the TCM. The only person talking about the constitutional process is you. Having opened the door with respect to the public discussion about the comparative costs then they ought to provide the public with sufficient and relevant information to evaluate the deal and justify their decision.

In a situation of potential ministerial conflict of interest the obligation and burden of transparency to demonstrate that the potentially conflicted deal is objectively superior to any other deal is, and should be, on the government. So far the FNM has not come close to discharging that obligation. Before this deal is finalized they should release into the public domain a comparison of the economics and total costs of the competing options and any other logistical or environmental factors that makes one option superior to the others. The Renward Wells and the PMs explanations are both nonsensical and irrelevant to the substance of this decision and in fact can even be deemed misleading. Mentioning $12 psf without stating the costs of improvements and who would be responsible for those costs and without stating what is or is not included in that $12 psf is, in my view, a deliberate attempt to mislead because one certainly cannot properly evaluate this deal based on that information alone.

Have you read your own post? If the intent was not to deceive why not just state what the estimated costs to get the TCM to its intended use? Surely they must know this information to make this decision? The PM went on foreign soil, yes foreign soil, to talk about how corruption was costing the Bahamian taxpayers over $500 million a year. The Bahamian public should not have to guess whether its $20 or $5 million. The TCM structure has already been compromised, and even if the improvements costs are the same, which is highly unlikely, why enter the deal with Brent to pay rent when the government already own the Phil's building. In a situation of a conflict of interest and potential corruption, the burden of proof is on the government to prove and demonstrate that self-dealing corruption is not at play. They have failed demonstrably to make that case, in my opinion.

Of course you would not see it in the article. Have you wondered why?

Finally we are getting close to the heart of the matter. The deal smells like a rat, not only because of the conflict of interest and potential corruption issues but because the economics of the deal are also questionably. Someone commented that Brent is giving the government a discount at $12 per square foot. What utter nonsense! First of all for a dilapidated and structurally unsound building and space $12 psf is no discount. More importantly, if the government has to spend over $20 million or more on improvements to get this location up to par then the true effective rental costs would be the $20 million plus the annual $12 per square foot. It is important to remember that a recent hurricane destroyed a major section of this same structure recently, therefore, the poor structure would also likely lead to significant and unusually high maintenance costs in addition to the $12 psf. Some have compared this deal to the deal the PLP entered with the numbers boys. In that scenario, the numbers boys put up their own money to get those buildings up to par for the intended use of the government. If we really want to make the comparison and talk about $12 discount rate, Brent would have to finance the $20 million for improvements to get the building ready for its intended use for this deal to make sense. Only then can Brent and is sad apologist brag about $12 psf discount. Otherwise, I do not see how this cannot be called corruption, in broad daylight and rank hypocrisy. The government is in essence taking $20 million plus a future unknown dollar amount of hard earned tax payer money and depositing it directly into the account of Brent, no more no less for a building that currently has no commercial useful purpose.