The most recent scandals engulfing Education Minister Jerome Fitzgerald and Labour and National Insurance Minister Shane Gibson are emblematic of the rot in the PLP, which has metastasized over nearly half a century of the party's existence.
The PLP is dominated by a greedy oligarchy that uses political power for the benefit of their economic interests. Over the decades the PLP elite have amassed untold millions at the expense of the Bahamian people.
The elite are enabled by various mandarins and bag men who serve at the pleasure of the hierarchy. The enablers include certain legal and other firms.
The PLP is mostly a business with a political front. There is a vast culture of corruption in the PLP. Over its many decades as a political organization the PLP has been dogged by innumerable scandals.
It so often seems that when the PLP is in office, its mandarins try to get a cut or percentage of just about every foreign investment or matter requiring government approval. The pernicious greed knows few boundaries.
Perry Christie's promise before the 2002 election to reform the culture of the PLP was a sham and a public relations ploy. Anyone who tried to reform the party would be doomed. Corruption is rife in the higher echelons of the PLP.
In 2002, Christie introduced a code of ethics. He declared at the time: "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 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."
The 2002 code, including these provisions, reads: "8. While in office ministers should make good judgments about investments so as not to create conflicts of interest...
"9. A minister should readily remove himself from Cabinet meetings and the duration of discussions in which a subject matter may affect his private interest.
"10. Where a minister is called upon to exercise any power or discretion which could give rise to a conflict of interest, he should immediately inform the prime minister and refrain from taking any action in the meantime.
"12. Ministers must avoid recommending their former firms or businesses to persons seeking the government's favor or continued favor."

Cash cow
Consider these provisions and the brazen conflicts of interest by various PLP Cabinet ministers and their families who used or attempted to use Baha Mar as a cash cow.
Despite this code of ethics, from 2002 to 2007 Christie presided over a party that was rocked by questionable dealings and from one scandal to the next, including: alleged victimization at BAIC, the Korean fishing boat scandal, the phantom Bluewater attempted takeover of BTC, the Anna Nicole Smith-related scandals, the Great Mayaguana land giveaway, and others.
After Sidney Stubbs resigned as executive chairman of BAIC in 2013 Christie said in the House of Assembly: "I made it very clear to the Bahamian public, I have made it very clear here and before, if any minister or chairman, any parliamentary secretary, transgresses rules and they are brought to my attention, I would ask them to resign."
Fast forward to 2017. It was easy for Christie to rid himself of a weak and dispensable Stubbs. But he would not dare touch Gibson or Fitzgerald.
The prime minister, who exhorts the omnipotence, omnipresence and omnificence of God, can't bring himself to deal or even speak about the unethical and improper conduct of these Cabinet ministers. Christie is farce writ large. He has become a cliche of himself.
What is striking, though, typical of Fitzgerald and Gibson, is the blazing arrogance of the men as they belligerently ignored Cabinet protocols in order to enrich themselves.
It is difficult to be fired from a Christie Cabinet. Gibson resigned from a previous Christie government only because the Anna Nicole Smith scandal became an international embarrassment for the country and the PLP.
A telling example of the unfettered arrogance of Fitzgerald and his dismissiveness of public sentiment was the way he handled the Rubis oil leak in his Marathon constituency.
He was so concerned about his political interests and survival, that he withheld information from his constituents. He potentially put their health at risk because of his selfish need to remain viable within the PLP. His actions were contemptible.

Arrogant
Instead of expressing remorse for his behavior, he became even more arrogant and dismissive, reportedly bragging that there was no way he could lose Marathon.
Fitzgerald's arrogance and contempt for the public good knows few to no bounds. With braggadocio and smarmy glee he read emails he was not authorized to in the House of Assembly.
The minister, who went trolling for the emails of others, got his comeuppance when his exchange of emails with former Baha Mar developer Sarkis Izmirlian was recently made public.
The stupidity and arrogance of Fitzgerald was revealed in his cavalier willingness to beg for contracts for his father's business via email. His solicitation was clearly in violation of Cabinet protocols. But, clearly he did not care about being so brazen and blatant.
His hubris came back to haunt him. His actions are a major embarrassment to the government mere weeks before the general election.
Fitzgerald's greed is typical in the PLP. Not only did he want a limousine contract; he wanted a trucking contract, a brokerage contract and $20,000 a month. This is breathtaking greed.
Even Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson, who has her own family conflicts of interest at Baha Mar, must have been impressed by Fitzgerald's insatiable greed.
Christie had as his two main Cabinet negotiators at Baha Mar, two individuals who intended to use the mega-resort to enrich themselves and their families at the expense of the Bahamian people.
Given his past public conduct, it comes as no surprise that Shane Gibson received approximately $94,000 from the controversial Peter Nygard, who reportedly donated $5 million to the PLP before the 2012 general election.
Nygard claims the money was for professional services, which means that Gibson would have been in violation of Cabinet protocols and the PLP's own ethics code.
But this is all business as usual in a party that cannot properly account for VAT revenue and typically refuses to account for its misdeeds, corruption and breaches of the public trust.
Fitzgerald and Gibson are the true and representative faces of a party that has demonstrated no appetite or will to reform a culture that well serves the economic and private interests of a very few at the expense of the majority of Bahamians.

o frontporchguardian@gmail.com, www.bahamapundit.com.

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