Eight years after FOIA was passed, the Attorney General is still telling the country, “We’re right where we were.” That is the closest this government has come to admitting the truth. They have no intention of giving the Bahamian people real access to information, because transparency threatens the way they govern.
The Prime Minister now says FOIA cannot be a priority because “the Bahamian people are still suffering.” That suffering is real, and his comment is the first honest admission we have heard from him in years. But it also raises a simple question. If people are struggling, why is this government fighting so hard to keep its spending in the dark?
Clearly, the Prime Minister understands that he must stall the implementation of Freedom of Information because it is impossible for him to explain why.
Over the last three years, the Davis administration has awarded more than $400 million in sole-source and direct-award contracts, in many cases bypassing the competitive bidding processes required by law to protect taxpayers. There has been no meaningful explanation for why these did not go to tender or why only a select privileged few have gotten massive contracts.
With FOIA in place, Bahamians would get an answer on the $40 million plus advanced to a shell company that is associated with the Carmichael Village Development Project. I have written the Prime Minister twice to get answers, and I have raised the matter in Parliament, yet the government has refused to provide a full accounting of where that money went. The initiative now appears to be 100 percent overspent, and less than half of the promised homes have been constructed. Where did the money go? This is precisely the type of transaction FOIA was designed to bring into the light.
The Prime Minister’s remarks about FOIA being “esoteric” is both disingenuous and dangerous. FOIA is not an abstract theory. It is the mechanism that protects our democracy from the complacency and carelessness that secrecy breeds. When governments stop expecting the public to ask questions, they also stop expecting themselves to provide answers.
Prime Minister Davis and his PLP cohorts believe that the business of the Bahamian people is none of the people’s business. That way of thinking must come to an end.
A Pintard-led administration will begin full implementation of the FOIA immediately upon taking office, beginning with the proactive publication of existing agreements, contracts, reports, etc. We will set a robust and prompt timeline to ensure that all elements of FOIA are in place in every government agency as soon as the processes for same can be implemented.