Long Island MP Loretta Butler-Turner yesterday questioned when the government would table promised legislation to regulate the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).
Butler-Turner has claimed that the government may be using the NIA to "engage in domestic spying on the Bahamian people". Minister of National Security Dr. Bernard Nottage has denied that claim.
In May, he promised that legislation for the NIA would be tabled and passed in the House of Assembly before the end of the year.
He said a draft bill for the NIA is "virtually completed".
During debate on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Bill 2014 yesterday, Butler-Turner said, "Transparency and accountability mean little to this government.
"Earlier this year I sounded the alarm on the domestic spy agency, the National Intelligence Agency, and its lack of legal footing.
"We were promised legislation by the end of the year.
"Where is the legislation? Is the government continuing to operate an agency with no legal foundation?
"The PLP has shredded transparency. They are seemingly accountable to no one.
"They continue to mock our democracy and this Parliament with their arrogance, smugness and highhandedness."
Nottage has said that the NIA will seek to prevent the emergence of any new threats to The Bahamas.
Its purpose is to be the eyes and ears of the country, not only locally, but beyond that to regional and international capacities, he said.
Nottage said through the agency, the government hopes to deter threats to The Bahamas' national security, including the trafficking of drugs and firearms, illegal poaching and migration, corruption, criminal gangs and crime in general.

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