There is a well-known phrase for the condition when one is faced with a choice, or two courses of action, such that whatever the choice made or the action taken the outcome is often uncomfortable at best and harmful at least.
That situation is commonly referred to as being impaled on the horns of a dilemma. We might have witnessed a classic case of some type of dilemma situation recently in the House of Assembly.
Last week, former Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Senator and current Free National Movement (FNM) Member of Parliament for South Abaco Edison Key dropped a minor bombshell on the head of the leader of the Democratic National Alliance (DNA), Branville McCartney, and former Minister of State for Immigration in the FNM administration.
Key is currently the executive chairman of the Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation (BAIC), the government agency responsible for promoting and encouraging the development of agriculture and industrial activity in The Bahamas. That corporation is presumably owed a lot of money by the businesses it tried to encourage to develop - money that the corporation seemingly felt that the policy-making arm of that agency, the board of directors and its chairman - should seek to recover notwithstanding that the pursuit of collectibles is generally regarded as a function of line management.
In any event, Key informed the House that he had a meeting with McCartney to discuss BAIC's accounts receivables and the eventual engagement of McCartney and/or his law firm to act on BAIC's behalf to collect the outstanding amounts owed. The problem here is that McCartney at that time would have been a member of the Cabinet and by both convention and accepted ethical practice, he ought not to enter into contracts with the government without the prior approval of the Cabinet and in some cases, Parliament. It could be argued, rather persuasively, that the same standard ought to apply to the chairman of BAIC - that is, he should have obtained prior permission before acting. The leader of the DNA, McCartney, has denied that those events ever took place.
Key's allegations were delivered during a debate on anti-crime measures in the House and following an intervention by McCartney in which he chided some House members for, apparently, not always following rules, procedures, conventions and laws. It would appear that Key, a senior and seasoned parliamentarian, saw an opportunity to teach the young member of Parliament not to "...throw stones if he lived in a glass house...".
If that was indeed the case, then Key must surely have recognized the dilemma he would be faced with. On the one hand, if McCartney was able to successfully defend against the attack and it was proved that the alleged arrangement did not take place, one possible outcome would be to censure Key for misleading Parliament. On the other hand, if it were ruled that the alleged arrangements took place exactly as described by Key, then the authorities would have to decide what should be done to Key for offering a contract to a cabinet minister.
It appears that Key created quite a dilemma for himself.
Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian
