Dear BP,
In this election cycle, many people were making political hay out of the alleged fraudulent passports and voter cards floating around. If you listen to the commentary, you may believe that government ministers are perpetrating these illegal practices, but you would be wrong. Corrupt public officers are doing all of this damage.
Firstly, let’s define corruption. “ Corruption is best understood as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain, whether by individuals, groups, or institutions. This definition captures the core element that unites all forms of corruption: someone who has been given authority uses it improperly to benefit themselves or others at the expense of the public interest”.
Many Bahamians have either heard or have had direct experience with public officers requesting “lunch” to perform a duty for which they are being paid.
It is so pervasive in the public service that it is accepted as a cost of doing business, but this is corruption. Bahamians may not think so because it seems so innocent, but it is corruption. It is also a gateway to even more outrageous, corrupt behaviour. Think about it; if an employed public officer is so hard up even after many of them have been given double, and sometimes triple, increments, and in some cases lump-sum payments, what will they do for large sums of money?
This begs another question. What happened to the public service rule that forbade officers from assigning all of their salaries to lenders? Obviously, this no longer exists, or some public officials would not be so hard up and vulnerable to corrupt inducements. I have said before that improper vetting of public officers is one of the main causes for so much corruption in the service. Because, if this were done properly, it would have been revealed that some, because of their lifestyle choices and spending habits, were not only vulnerable to corruption but owed everyone in Nassau. So, no matter what you paid them, it would never be enough. The normalised view that public officers habitually supplement their salaries through corrupt practices is totally unacceptable.
Officers from any ministry found to be engaging in corrupt practices should be brought before the courts and not transferred to other ministries, even if there are union or religious interventions. Our passports are valuable assets, and our voter cards are equally so, yet some Bahamians appear to think that fraud involving these items is no big deal. Well, it is, and I will continue to make noise until this plague is lifted from our country.
I will continue to report retired senior immigration officers who appear to be conducting immigration business in public venues. I will continue to report persons who appear to be conducting passport office business in restaurants on Saturdays.
I will make it my mission to photograph and report these activities because they make our Bahamas the object of ridicule, odium, and disrepute, and endanger our national security.
Sincerely,
Michael J. Brown
