Perry Christie's hypocrisy and those 'mindboggling' conflicts of interest

Thu, Jan 8th 2015, 12:04 AM

Over a 40-year public career Perry Christie has proven to be one of the great pretenders of Bahamian politics, vaulting hypocrisy to unimaginable heights, the gulf between his words and actions as vast as the Milky Way galaxy and ever expanding.
The self-proclaimed democrat has, politburo-style, ensured his re-election as party leader by stacking the PLP with now approximately 2,000 stalwart councillors whose votes easily swamp those of branch delegates. By stark comparison, the FNM has a ceiling of 60 meritorious council members (MCM), and presently only 58 MCMs.
Christie exhibits a pattern of callousness and contempt for democracy. His democratic credentials continue to wither: He has allowed a domestic spy agency to operate without proper legal footing; his last national budget was woefully lacking in critical details; his promises to report on all manner of issues are usually broken, from the amount of money given to the PLP by Mohammed Harajchi and Peter Nygard, to the costs of certain trips, to that infamous letter of intent imbroglio with Renward Wells; his silence about the seemingly irregular payments made to BEC by corporation Chairman Leslie Miller is but one example of his studied silence on a four-drawer filing cabinet of troubling developments; and the list goes on and on in an endless loop of democratic insincerity.
Meanwhile, the hypocrisy, insincerity, callousness and contempt for democratic accountability and transparency are writ large in the blatant conflicts of interest swirling around the Christie administration.
One apparent reason the prime minister will not admit or fails to admit the glaring conflict of interest of former Minister of Financial Services Ryan Pinder leaving his post to take up a lucrative job with Deltec Banking, is Christie's outsized conflict of interest, a mindboggling conflict which would have required his resignation in other jurisdictions.

Consultant
Christie acted as a consultant for the oil exploration concern Bahamas Petroleum Company (BPC) when he was leader of the opposition from 2007 to 2012, the same company which had previous business before his government from 2002 to 2007 and which was granted exploratory licences during that previous term, and which has business before his current administration.
We do not know how "handsomely" Christie was paid for his services. Supposedly to address questions of conduct, Christie promised a referendum on oil exploration. Such a referendum has been seemingly indefinitely postponed.
What are Bahamians left to conclude about Christie in light of the postponement? What of the fact that the postponement was announced by the environment minister and not the Cabinet Office? Christie's silence is deeply troubling and undermines his democratic credibility.
With handsome consulting fees from BPC, Christie's revolving-door conduct is just the beginning of his gargantuan hypocrisy. It gets worse. The oil business is one of the more polluting industries in the world from exploration to production to accidents and major spills bespoiling our planet.
The devastating 2010 BP Gulf of Mexico mega-disaster has done untold and long-term damage, including the massive ill-effects of various chemicals used in the mitigation efforts, with certain compounds having coagulated sitting on the seabed, with many negative effects all too apparent and some perhaps still unknown.
But typical Perry Christie, his words rarely match his actions. The hypocrisy is often so profound that it seems as if he is two different people. The man who was paid handsomely by an oil company has now twice gone before the U.N. lecturing the world about climate change.
Does Christie conveniently forget the extraordinary role played by fossil fuels in climate change? He is like a method actor, someone who simply reads the lines of a script, playacting with feigned sincerity and passion. It is one big act, in which he comes across more as a character playing a role than a leader of conviction.
"In the dramatic arts, method acting is a group of techniques actors use to create in themselves the thoughts and feelings of their characters, so as to develop lifelike performances."

Performance
Here is the fairly recent oil company consultant turned prime minister's performance on September 28, 2013 at the U.N. General Assembly's 68th Session: "The Bahamas is surrounded by the sea and is low-lying. Indeed 80 percent of the land mass of The Bahamas is below five feet of sea level. The implications of climate change and associated rises in sea level are therefore obvious for us."
Was this in his mind when he was acting as a consultant to an oil exploration company? The man who speaks of rising sea levels has been involved in work that may help to make the situation worse.
How in good conscience can anyone make such a statement having been paid handsomely for efforts that will help to warm our climate and acidify our oceans even further? This is stunningly hypocritical and is deserving of utter disdain.
Speaking to larger nations on a variety of global issues, Christie, with seemingly no compunction, said: "Find your courage, because the hour grows late."
Does he have the capacity to hear himself? This is exactly the sentiment many environmentally minded Bahamians would express to him. But, once again, it gets even worse. The former oil company consultant actually had the gall to proclaim in this clincher of hypocrisy: "We need to see more courage, more leadership, more sustained action on the global stage" and "but we need to ensure that such pledges are not just so many catchy phrases. We need to not only talk the talk but walk the walk."
Christie doubled down on his near immeasurable hypocrisy when he went back to the U.N. on September 2014, speaking at the Climate Change Summit.
"I want my presence here today to signal that for The Bahamas, climate change is serious business. This threatens our very existence..."
The former oil company consultant whose work may help contribute to further global warming made the pretense of seeming like a concerned environmentalist: "Every day the sea is rising, the coral reefs are dying; yet so far all the world has done is talk. The fact is that nothing the world has done so far has stopped this upward trend in global emissions...
"We must increase global action so as to trigger the necessary shifts in investments, and changes in business models toward sustainable development and renewable energy. We must meet the potential for rapid deployment of renewable energy and positively change the global energy mix...
"We must look at each country's vulnerability to climate change, its debt and more importantly honor the principle that the polluter pays."
How exactly did Christie's work as an oil company consultant help in shifting "investments, and changes in business models toward sustainable development and renewable energy", and instead of simply making polluters pay, why work as a consultant advancing an industry known for high levels of pollution and vast contributions to climate change?

Pretending
Christie has often tried to be all things to all people. But this act of being paid handsomely by an oil exploration concern and then pretending to be concerned for the environment is too slick by far and does not wash.
At 2014 conference under the title "Toward a Corruption-Free Caribbean: Ethics, Values, Trust and Morality", Christie was at it again in seeming to say all the right things. Speaking on a code of ethics he tabled in 2002, Christie declared: "Like many codes, it was primarily intended to be (and has been) a moral signpost and guide for the conduct of political decision-makers in our country. In introducing the code, I said that:
"If public confidence in the integrity of the political directorate of The Bahamas is to become a hallmark of our political culture, it is of the first importance that the prime minister and other ministers of government observe - and be seen to observe - the highest standards of probity in public life.
"I believe in leading by example, and it is clear that one of the necessary ingredients for the success of any national initiative to fight corruption is sustained political will and the power of personal example."
In this case the prime minister has utterly failed to lead by example. His conflict of interest in this instance is glaring. "The highest standard of probity" as is the case in other jurisdictions, is for Christie not to have allowed such a conflict of interest in the first instance. The moral signpost seems to have been knocked down.
So now we have the case of the Ryan Pinder conflict of interest which would not have been tolerated in any number of jurisdictions. Christie's response: There's no conflict of interest because Pinder was only in a promotional role. He was not. He was a policymaker sitting around the Cabinet table, with collective responsibility in influencing government decisions.
Christie's response is the epitome of hogwash, bullcrap and a barnyard of euphemisms, more of which next week. Christie is again trying to boggle and baffle others with his typical balderdash, yet another euphemism.
Perhaps Pinder has simply followed Christie's poor example through that revolving door. How handsomely was Christie paid and what is the "mindboggling" figure Pinder will be paid?
As curious as Christie's dismissal of any conflict is a related bizarre statement by others that Pinder is being criticized primarily because he is white. It is a disturbing racial mindset typical of the blinkered worldview of those making such a claim.

Next week: Ryan Pinder, conflicts of interest and questions of race and politics.
o frontporchguardian@gmail.com, www.bahamapundit.com.

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