Dear Editor,
I say to the MP from Marathon, pack your bags, Jerome Fitzgerald. You are toast.
Shame on you for trying to seal what presumably would have been very lucrative contracts with the Baha Mar resort for brokerage, trucking and limo services through companies that are purported to be Fitzgerald family businesses. I also have to say kudos to Sarkis Izmirlian for sticking to his guns and awarding contracts based on merit -- "cost and ability"-- as is only proper.
When responding to an article in The Punch about Fitzgerald's possible abuse of power and conflict of interest regarding his family's dealings with Baha Mar, the minister's reply earlier this week was in direct contradiction to his emails that were leaked from the China Construction America (CCA) company's server. In Thursday's paper (20 April) The Tribune printed several of these emails, allegedly written by Fitzgerald, dating back to 2013 and 2014. In them, there is no question that he is seeking contracts for various jobs at Baha Mar for the family business, jobs that could be fulfilled through what are believed to be his family's businesses.
Yet when recently asked, Fitzgerald responded by saying, "I have no interest whatsoever in, no dealing with Baha Mar, none, zero." I'm sorry, Jerome Fitzgerald, but those correspondences say otherwise. In addition, according to Tribune Business, Bahamas Cargo and Logistics Ltd. was a creditor when Izmirlian tried to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2015.
It is ironic that it is an email issue that has condemned Fitzgerald this time around (as opposed to an undisclosed Rubis fuel leak report, among other things). While Fitzgerald tried to demean and disgrace some of his political rivals in the House of Parliament (March, 2016) by reading their private emails into the public record, it is now his leaked emails from the CCA company's server that come back to haunt, demean and disgrace him. The courts ruled against Fitzgerald for infringing on the constitutional rights of his rivals and he was fined the sum of $150,000. You know what they say: "What goes around, comes around."
Mr. Fitzgerald, maybe you should just get in one of your fancy limos that "only cater to high end customers" and ride off into the sunset. Be sure to pass by the Marathon gas station in your constituency for fuel first, since there is, or was, never any reported fuel leakage into the community's water table there.

- BT

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