Alex Scott

The “debate” over whether Bermuda should go independent has always been a waste of time, but now it has descended into farce. If the possible financial ruin of a successful country could ever be said to be funny, what's going on here would be hilarious.

Imagine if you had an excuse for everything bad that you ever did. Imagine a society in which half the people had the same excuse. Would you rather be in the group with the excuse that exempted them from the

Bermuda's schoolchildren and people, its largest industrial union, and the Progressive Labour Party (PLP) all simultaneously suffered devastating blows late in August, when the PLP Government of Bermuda cancelled its contract with ProActive Management for the construction of a secondary school, the Berkeley Institute.

In separate actions, the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority has announced its intention to revoke the Mutual Fund Administrator's license held by Signature Financial Group (Grand Cayman) Ltd., c/o P. O. Box 2494 GT, Grand Cayman, and that it has revoked the unrestricted Class 'B' Insurer's License held by Potomac Indemnity Company, effective April 6, 2004; Controversial newsletter publisher Pirate Investor LLC has obtained a subpoena against Yahoo! Inc. as part of its attempt to identify an anonymous Internet user who is suspected of a breach of copyright; The Isle of Man Financial Supervision Commission issued notices over April-June, 2004 urging the public to "exercise the greatest possible caution" when dealing with several businesses; The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates national banks in the United States, has issued advisories several 'banks'; If anyone wants a blueprint of how not to attempt to transport more than $10,000 out of the United States without correctly filling out the proper Customs forms, they could do a lot worse than study the case of 23-year-old Bahamian national Antunya Shenique Rahming; A Costa Rica-based private bank that targeted expatriates - Corporación Elca, S.A., more commonly known as Banco Elca - has been closed down by local regulator Superintendencia General de Entidades Financieras; Evidence of corruption against Grenada's Prime Minister Keith Mitchell and former Director of Public Prosecutions and current "Special Prosecutor" Hugh Wildman while he was Director of Public Prosecutions was referred to in a Judgment delivered in the UK High Court on June 24, 2004 in a civil lawsuit that had been filed against former First International Bank of Grenada CEO Lawrence Victor Jones by his former fiancé, Kerry Cox; Apart from being home to many a fraudulently-operated offshore company, the South Pacific island of Niue is also one of the biggest producers of Internet pornography in the world; The Australian Securities and Investments Commission announced on June 11, 2004 that it had concluded its proceedings in the Supreme Court of New South Wales against Trans Pacific Insurance Corporation, a Cayman Islands-registered insurers, and Triton Underwriting Insurance Agency Pty Ltd.; and Under the Progressive Labour Party Government, Bermuda — for so long a model, small-country jurisdiction — is hurtling towards being as openly corrupt as any of the islands in the Caribbean that it has historically looked down on.

Starved as we are for entertainment in Bermuda, the 2003 General Election has been the greatest show on earth. Even those who thought the Progressive Labour Party would be unable to manage the economy believed that they could at least manage themselves. How wrong we were.

Although our internal differences are often put down to economics, the theme running through Bermuda society these days is racism. No one plays the card better or more frequently than members of our first PLP- controlled black Government, elected in 1998 after what we constantly refer to as "400 years of abuse" at the hands of whites. The first PLP government set out to change the economic order by favouring blacks in the awarding of government contracts. Such behaviour is entirely illegal under our Constitution, but we don't worry much about that. Just this week, our Minister of Transport, Dr. Ewart Brown, who is black, said that Government was embarked on a policy of "compensatory economics — compensating for the injustices of the past."

The greatest achievement of our first experience of a Progressive Labour Party (PLP) government was supposed to be the $68 million construction of a new secondary school, the Berkeley Institute.We already have a Berkeley Institute, which has produced almost the entire black professional cadre that runs the Civil Service and the government. Building a new school a few hundred yards up the road from the first one was considered important by the new government.

Two leading Bermudians died within a few days of each other late this summer. The way in which their passing was received says a great deal about the nation we have become.David Allen was Minister of Tourism at the time

Lachmin Narrine Scott vs. Alex Scott - Grand Court of the Cayman Islands