“Nygard gave Gibson $94,000 – $5,000 a month paid to minister’s US bank account” – The Tribune

Excerpt from this article; “Peter Nygard sent thousands of dollars per month to a Bank of America account belonging to Labor and National Insurance Minister Shane Gibson between August 2011 and January 2013, documents obtained by The Tribune show.

The payments totaled $94,131.10.

Mr. Gibson did not immediately acknowledge that the transaction occurred when he was contacted yesterday, but after seeing the documents presented to him by The Tribune, admitted receipt of the funds.

He claimed the money was used as a contribution to his 2012 election campaign and for community initiatives in the Golden Gates constituency such as scholarships to students.”

Of course my first question is if the $5,000 per month stipend was actually being used for community initiatives in the Golden Gates constituency, such as scholarships; then why were they being paid to a US bank account and not to the constituency association’s bank account?  But that is another question for another day.

Just last week it was revealed that the Minister of Education, Science and Technology, Jerome Fitzgerald had solicited lucrative brokerage, trucking and limousine contracts on behalf of a company owned by this father.  This week is has been revealed that minister Shane Gibson, as a government official, was on the ‘payroll’ of Lyford Cay resident Peter Nygard. 

It is a well know fact that Peter Nygard ‘played ball’ with the current government and seemed to have gotten whatever he wanted and needed; even having some of them come to his defense in a dispute that he is having with his Lyford Cay neighbor, Louis Bacon; so was Sarkis Izmirlian treated with such distain by this same government because he refused to ‘play ball’?  Just thinking out loud.

It is clear that these recent events show that our present system is crying out for campaign finance reform.  We need to know who is working for whom; who is contributing to whom; so we can actually make a determination about the elected official or perspective elected official loyalty and whether it is actually to the country or the betterment of their ‘sponsors’.

This would cover all parties and individuals vying for elected office, even Free National Movement (FNM) candidate for Marco City, Mr. Michael Pintard as it relates to his works with Save The Bays, information I think he has already offered up in the past but these on-going revelations that are being exposed with Cabinet members of the Progressive Liberal Party is a perfect reason/argument to the introduction of campaign finance reform legislation because it seems that this government has the propensity to ‘freelance’.

The Progressive Liberal Party fails for one reason, it is their nature.

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