PM Christie may sack Wilchcombe for spilling Cabinet rifts to press!
Christie must control Cabinet before rogue members snitching Cabinet Secrets to the Tribune topple his government!
Nassau, Bahamas — The first signs of a Cabinet Rift developing deep inside the Christie Government is now being exposed to the public and from what we know strongman Prime Minister Rt. Hon. Perry G. Christie my have to sack his Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe.
Bahamas Press has learnt senior members of the Cabinet are angry following revelations of new airline taxes imposed on aircrafts landing in the Bahamas were expressed in opposition by Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe in an interview in the Tribune Friday past.
In an exclusive with the morning newspaper the Minister said that the Christie Government had no meeting with stakeholders prior to the increases to airlines and he concludes that such a decision could hurt the airline arrivals in the Bahamas.
In 2010 a letter sent to NAD and copied to then Bahamas Tourism Minister Vincent Vanderpool Wallace, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents 230 airlines comprising 93 per cent of the world’s scheduled international air traffic, warned that increasing fees could reduce tourism arrivals to the Bahamas. But the then minister stood resolute that the new fees were necessary to meet NAD’s debt obligations.
But listen to Minister Wilchcombe who told the Tribune on Friday 5th July the following – after the Christie Cabinet agreed on new landing fees in the 2013 budget:
“If they [Airline Companies] are informing us that the increase affects them negatively,” and could cause them to pull out of servicing the Bahamas, then certainly we would have to sit down and talk with them and see what their concerns are.”
In that revealing article the Tourism Minister added, “With a threat as real as this one, we cannot afford it and we will have to consider what their concerns are on the matter.”
A source in the position to know told Bahamas Press, “Mr. Wilchcombe has breeched Cabinet Conventions and had he not agreed with the collective decisions of the Christie Cabinet, then he knows what to do…he should have resigned and not come out ‘SNITCHING’ on a collective decision by the Executive.”
The harsh comments could follow with action by Prime Minister Christie who just recently on his feet in the Parliament publicly warned the Tourism Minister of his recent abrupt exit out of the country without him or any of his colleagues having knowledge of his departure.
The details of Wilchcombe’s trip to New York are still unknown and an angry Christie told Parliament, “You [Wilchcombe] went to New York and I was not informed!”
Some tell us the warning by the Prime Minister was a public censure, and Mr. Christie was not joking on the matter. Why the PM was not informed of the trip is still a great mystery to this day.
The source said, “If Mr. Wilchcombe decides to fan his disagreement on Cabinet conclusions to the Tribune, particularly on matters of which he would have sat in discussions on, then it is clear he has opened himself not only to public censure, but he can be fired by the Prime Minister – who is the chairman of his executive government and Minister of Finance with responsibility for raising and removing taxes!
“Just as he was appointed by the PM he can be fired by Mr. Christie; because carrying secrets of the Cabinet could bring down a government.”
How could a Cabinet Minister go to the Press and suggests what the Prime Minister and his Cabinet decides was not consultative, transparent or good for the Bahamas? Now that Minister asking for it!
By 1970, just three years before Independence, the then premier Lynden Pindling had already fired two cabinet ministers, Warren Levarity and Arthur Foulkes. One of the men was axed for the very thing Wilchcombe is doing now – “TRADING SECRETS FROM THE ROOM”! Guess which one of the two that was?
