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Submitted by Grenville Phillips II
he recently defeated Integrity in Public Life Bill (Integrity Bill) will not trouble the scores. Despite the fake Oscar-contention outrage of our senators, if the bill had passed, it would simply have made corruption legal in Barbados. That is how terrible the bill was designed.
At first, the bill specified that a person could not be investigated for corruption after they had retired from public life for 2 years. So, a person who received a bribe in January 2018 and then retired, cannot be investigated after February 2020.
A sloppy bribe may be uncovered by a financial audit, but the 2018 accounts are audited in 2019. The earliest the Auditor General will look at the 2019 audited accounts is in 2020, after the fellow has retired. How convenient. Perhaps the time has come to ask our politicians and senators, why they would champion such a farce.
After Solutions Barbados explained the farce, the final Bill increased the time where no investigations can happen, to 5 years. That is also useless in Barbados, since the Auditor General provides his annual report of many issues that are more than five years old. A short limit on investigating corruption is a glaring loophole for guilty persons.
The Integrity Bill will likely cost taxpayers $5M each year, to recover less than $50,000. It is a farce. It conveniently ignores the estimated $100M of corrupting no-bid contracts each year. The Integrity Bill is wasteful, ineffective, and practically useless for Barbados. Consider the following scenario.
CORRUPTION 101.
A company bribes a person to get a no-bid contract. The company charges the Government five times the normal value of the work, which Barbadians must pay in higher taxes (that is why most Barbadians live hand-to-mouth). The bribe may be paid in any of the following ways.
1. Paying his election advertising expenses.
2. Building a house, and transferring ownership five years after he retires.
3. Purchasing land, and transferring ownership five years after he retires.
4. Purchasing financial instruments that mature five years after he retires.
5. Funding community projects in his constituency.
6. Paying money to his friends.
7. Selling him property (eg. car, house, etc) at a significant discount.
8. Paying for the renovation of his house.
9. Paying his children’s educational costs.
10. Hiring consultants and employees whom he recommends.
11. Hiring him as a consultant five years after he retires.
12. Procuring and managing a business (eg restaurant or store), and transferring ownership to his family five years after he retires.
There are hundreds of similar ways of paying and receiving bribes. Our useless Integrity Bill is conveniently designed to avoid all of them. Worse, the Integrity bill does not address any of the common methods of political corruption.
POLITICAL CORRUPTION.
Forcing the public to make payments to consultants that only benefit one political party, is political corruption. The payments are normally made to political supporters, who may be disguised as: public relations, media, information technology, security, or financial advisors.
Solutions Barbados recommended an effective anti-corruption policy. It is based on the proven method of rewarding whistle-blowers, as an incentive to blow the whistle. We planned to reward them with the total value of the bribe. We also planned to fine both the bribe givers and the bribe takers, to pay for the policy.
The whistle-blowers already know about the corrupt activities. They include: tellers who did the bank transactions, contractors who renovated the houses, lawyers who drafted the contracts, accountants who did the audits, and vendors who sold the properties. Employees of the department that gave the no-bid contract, and the company that paid the bribe, also know.
The Government is planning to pass a whistle-blower protection bill, but there is no reward incentive. Instead, the exposed whistle-blower gets to keep working in the now toxic work environment, until it takes its foreseen emotional health toll. What a farce of an incentive.
It is time for our politicians and senators to stop giving us false hopes. If they do not plan to reward whistle-blowers, and abolish corrupting no-bid contracts, then at least be honest with Barbadians. Passing an ineffective Integrity Bill is not in the public’s best interest. However, it is good political advice, that benefits only one political party.
Tape 2
Big Boy: I can’t believe we pull it off. Very little protest today.
MP: I know what I am doing. That is what I call political judo. First you have to know what they want and then like in judo, you use their momentum against them. They wanted it moved. We promised to move it and gave them a date. We lulled them to sleep. Protests and marching dropped off.Then just before the big day, we tell them the big move is off. We had them so asleep that they couldn’t get together to march and protest.
Big Boy: But they alert now. That trick will not work again.
MP: We call dat de twenty-year trick. We were at this stage twenty years ago and it worked. All we have to do now is bob and weave and a little rope-a-dope. Believe me! We got this.
Big Boy: You think you can do this for the next twenty years?
MP: Man if we had crop-over this year Nelson would already be history. Did you get that little clever pun. But we are not worry. These fellows bright but dem memory short. The bob and weave going to knock them out. By September, they forgot who Nelson is.
Big Boy: I beginning to like you. You know these people. You have their measure. I going to be quiet, but I monitoring the situation. The statue stays.
Lol Donna is the trump making the recording in secret to be trusted.? I gave one of my sisters a house but I can guarantee because I was the youngest and a boy, she would say stuff about me off the cuff that probably wouldn’t be that nice because of old memory’s . In her mind and the others for that matter thought my parents doted on me but it was just such an age gap of years I guess my folks thought my sisters were mature enough I didn’t need them as much Now because I was changing my own diapers at one years old I can spot shit like theo puts out , the statue is a distraction the shiny bauble for the mentally lame as it were Time shouldn’t be wasted aimlessly in a crisis . Its like BLM protests in Barbados, the protesters say black lives matter, the politicians agree, the prime minister agrees the police agree,… everybody black….. protest over
Dem big worders somewhere over there fantasizing.
I spoke to a psychiatrist and he told me to research the following:
Verbal diarrhea
Verbal erection
Verbal masturbation and
Verbal ejaculation
A quote from him “the orgasm resulting from this verbal stimulation can rivaled that of ‘real’ sex. I suspect that members of your group are all over 50”.
Will report on my Google search later on GU (Gazerts underground)
33 electric buses were rolled out yesterday
No Transparency
On august 8th Minister of transportation promised transparency on these buses in Parliament
This August 23rd buses on the street and public no where wiser
Here is what the minister said
“I don’t want to say too much. There will be an opportunity probably within a week or so and I intend to address the matter of electric buses. Safe to say, that the Government of Barbados is not indebted to anyone for the purchase of the 33 electric buses in Barbados.
“Also, I will also lay out within one week’s time how those electric buses are going to be deployed across Barbados. I am going to tell you how much money the Government of Barbados paid for the buses. I will also tell you how much money was spent in the electrical infrastructure and I will also give this House the assurance that we will answer any questions put to us in respect of the electric buses because we have absolutely nothing to hide,” Gooding-Edghill maintained.
####somuchforgoodgoverance
Changing your diapers at one years old?
You have been playing in shiite for quite some time. Hopefully, your claim to being a genius extend to other areas.
“Its like BLM protests in Barbados, the protesters say black lives matter, the politicians agree, the prime minister agrees the police agree,… everybody black….. protest over”
Hopefully, this reaches him
“Its like moving the statue, the protesters say move the statue, the politicians agree, the prime minister agrees the police agree,… everybody black….. statue moved.
can cahill /del mastro solar panels fit on rooves of buses ?
@Mariposa
I see that you have found a good bone to gnaw on. The lack of transparency, the empty promises and the glaring failure to deliver on the due date..
You go girl
Simpleton G.
Theo ….when…….and if it ever happens Antigua I am sure will take it because they are about business
playing in it and eating it , are different theo , isnt that why you want the statue moved because you have eating it for a long long time, Well its starting to come back up if your last few posts are indicative.
“Its like moving the statue, the protesters say move the statue, the politicians agree, the prime minister agrees the police agree,… everybody black….. statue moved..”
that’s the problem right there….SLAVES…do not believe they are Black, they only believe they are special and were the best slaves in the Caribbean…that’s why they have no culture and hate the African descended who do eg Rasta Community etc, they hate those who have independent thought, because they are not capable of such, they are manufactured creatures of the colonial system…chosen to control the islands which they have run right into the ground….MFs.
Lawson,
She only confirms what we already know.
Doesn’t matter if the niece can be trusted. What matters is that a person who has known this man all his life agrees totally that he has no principles and is not to be trusted.
She did not know she was being recorded and refuses to say it when she knows she is being recorded.
This was a woman with obvious family pride or loyalty speaking in confidence to another family member. This is understandable. This is real. This is a conflict with which most of us would struggle. We have it drummed into us from birth not to air negative family business. I know that from experience. The person who outs the deed is frowned upon more than the person who does the deed.
This was her honest opinion of her brother. She just had to share it. She just had to get it out of her system. She chose to do so WITHIN THE FAMILY – the only place where it is conventionally allowed.
There is nothing more honest than that.
But you don’t care about honesty. You have a different agenda.
I noticed that government is now investing heavily in BWA. Let’s hope that in their search for cash, they are not fixing it up and then trying to sell it …
GRIT ( Gazerts Research and Investment Team)
The pipe laying at Vinyard is a continuation of former government project.
The statue will be removed. Nuh lotta long talk.
What is the sense in more protest? The Government has agreed to its removal. Therefore it shall be removed.
Wuh dey gon do? Arrest the men that carry out the removal?
I just hope nobody gets hurt in the removal process.
@Donna
You should read Adrian Greene today. It is not just about removal, it is about where to and the ceremony that accompanies it to make the symbolism of it resonate with people.
🙂
Got ya on ya toes..
As you said my body is rejecting it, but it seems as if you are still playing with it. If you are good at it, stick with it…
The privatisation of the utilities is a cornerstone of the Washington Consensus. Guyanese water was once managed by a British company. Whatever happened to that?
Let me go and return later…
I think the blogmaster is too high in the batting order. He should be batting at 5, 6 or 7 instead of opening.
Suggesting a reordering of the team. Lorenzo is a very weak bowler and should be higher in the order..
Lorenzo and Robert openers followed by Enuff if you can find him/her, then the 🙂 All-rounder 🙂 and then the blogmaster
Have a great day. I enjoyed.
gotta get out of the litter box theo going for a long walk around canal the lunch and drinks please resolve everything before I get home lol
And by the way. The age gap and the gender bias caused my parents to do the same to me, the older sister. I was livid at the time and some memories still sting.
My brother and I still loved and love each other despite the sometimes serious disagreements.
However, I don’t make up stories about him and would find it hard to paint him in a negative light to the Nation Newspaper. I do discuss anything negative with family though. Gotta talk to SOMEBODY!
Theo
Not gnawing at any thing
Just bringing the BU rabbits what is of importance across social media
David,
Adrian Greene is just agreeing wirh me. I am on BU record offering to plan the ceremony that would resonate with the people. Meaningless ceremonies and hypocritical conventional mouthings annoy me but meaningful ceremonies that signal new forwardlooking eras
I embrace wholeheartedly.
However….. if the people remove the statue that too would be a MOVING symbolic experience guaranteed to herald in a new dynamic.
P.S. Adrian Greene seems to be the soul brother I never had. He is the only reason I started back buying the Sunday Sun. He always writes the column I would have written.
Bait and switch – the tactics of used cars salesmen
https://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/news/247354/freedom-park-reopen-nelson-stay
I guess Jerry Falwell will not be speaking at the Republican Convention and will Becki still fulfill her role on the advisory committee of Women for Trump?
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-falwell-relationship/
What do you expect from the one who led so-called Evangelicals towards the pussy grabbing, Miss Universe peeping pervert?
A bunch of Kool Aid drinking Jim Jones cultists with no thoughts of their own put this demon in the White House. He claims he could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue and not lose a vote and sadly for once he spoke the truth.
@Sargeant, I had reason to see some/make scathing remarks on this Jim Baker/Jimmy Swaggert like detritus yesterday… in fact no, I should not describe a child of God as such because we all are sinners who seek to reach atonement… so to him I wish ‘all the best’.
But… is he not a perfect example of the awful alternative world that has been built with this POTUS.. like many I found it SHOCKING that a leading man of God could so wholeheartedly embrace the ne’er-do-well that was POTUS … but now it’s clear why.
The hypocrisy is staggering, Falwell is head of an institution that prohibits premarital sex and yet he condoned his wife’s affair and according to the wife’s lover he even watched some of the proceedings.
Waiting for the photos to drop but according to some sources Trump fixer- Michael Cohen- had them destroyed, perhaps Cohen will add a chapter to his book.
Former Republican Governor
Is that the same Pam Bondi to whom Trump donated $25,000 to her campaign when she was on the verge of investigating his fleecing of Florida residents through his bogus Trump University? Is that the same Bondi who as Florida Atty General dropped the investigation? Did the NY State authorities determine that the “donation” came from the Trump Foundation (another bogus charity) Did the same NY State authorities fine Trump and his family a few million dollars and issue strict guidelines should Trump, Donald JR.,Ivanka and Eric ever try to run a charity again?
So Bondi talked about nepotism, I give you Jared and Ivanka…… case closed.