COMMENTARY

Commentary: Turks & Caicos: Living to sell Published on Thursday, December 10, 2009 Email To Friend    Print Version By Ben Roberts How did Turks & Caicos end up in this unpleasant position of a depressed economy, shortage of jobs, lack of funds, and intervention by an overseeing authority? Chalk it up to their penchant for selling just about anything. It happened in this order: In various circumstances some of our citizens sold their votes to politicians for access and special privilege. The politicians then turned around and sold themselves to developers and moneyed interests, granting them access and special privilege. The politicians then conducted a fire sale on the natural resources and Crown Land of the citizens, facilitating concessions all the way. At the end of the day what we ended up with is what we now have in T&C. Our people dispossessed and with precious little, and T&C real estate up for sale to the highest bidder. One such property is the house said to be the property of Mike Misick, former leader of T&C, which is listed for sale by a real estate firm at fifteen million dollars. Listen in: ‘Do I hear fourteen million? Fourteen million? Fourteen million? Yes! You there in the blue shirt holding the greenbacks fourteen million. Errrrr… who will now make it fourteen million five hundred thousand? Fourteen million five hundred thousand? Yes! Yes! You in the gray shirt holding the pounds. It’s fourteen million five hundred thousand. Who will now make it fifteen million? Aaaanyone fifteen million? You there! Yes I have fifteen million. Now it’s fifteen million five hundred thousand. Do I have fifteen million five hundred thousand? Doooo.. I have fifteen million five hundred thousand? Fifteen million five hundred thousand? Fifteen million five hundred thousand? Going once! Going twice! Sold for fifteen million to….’ Maybe it will not be anything as dramatic as a public auction, since the property is listed with a New York real estate firm. It will probably be more like a wealthy businessman calling from a phone poolside at his mansion, or from the phone in his chauffeur-driven limo, to make the purchase. Or it could be someone making the transaction on behalf of someone, who themselves are acting on behalf of someone. It could be many such someones, so that it would be like peeling an onion before we get to the original buyer. Just some of the possible scenarios. But stop! With so many questions to be answered surrounding this house, how can this property be put up for sale in the first place? Something stinks to high heaven here. We have Escalade vehicles used by former Ministers being confiscated. We have political offices being cleared of items thought to be excessive and improper acquisitions by the former T&C government. We have the assets of a financier, involved in FOREX trading, frozen pending prosecution. Yet a house claimed to be owned by Mike Misick, and estimated to be worth fifteen million dollars, is being put up for sale without even a question being asked? On talking to one of my close contacts about this the first question they asked was, “Who is selling this house?” Exactly. This has to be the main question. Is Misick selling the house? Is the interim government selling the house? Remember, as one of my astute and diligent followers of the Commission of Inquiry proceedings reminded me, Mike took out a loan against this house at one point. So is it the original or secondary lender, or lenders, attempting to sell this house? Rumours have stubbornly persisted that a major British financier provided the money to build the house and a major construction company with strong British ties undertook the actual building of the property. Anyone who doubts the worth of persistent rumours in T&C should recall how an overwhelming number of them were found to be spectacular and unquestionable fact in the Commission of Inquiry hearings. Strangely, that Inquiry had very little to say about this elephant-in-the-room house. One has to wonder why. It seems rather strange that the British are quietly allowing this sale to take place. To quote Shakespeare ‘Something is rotten in Denmark.’ One of my close associates reminded me that the PDM pushed for, and had passed, a ‘Proceeds of Crime Bill.’ As I recall they did. With Misick as the major figure being investigated by the Commission of Inquiry, and now by Ms Garlick and her team, for corruption and acts of criminal behaviour, this house might very well turn out to be one of the ‘proceeds of crime.’ How can it be allowed to sell? It is the equivalent of law enforcement informing a pawnshop operation that they are conducting a burglary investigation and want to rule out their inventory as being any of the designated items, and the pawnshop sells off their inventory before the investigators get there. What a joke. Moreover, if that house in its site acquisition, construction, furnishing, and upkeep, benefited in any way from T&C public funds and T&C government concessions such as duty exemptions, favourable contract tendering, building and labour concessions, and payments from our Treasury for maintenance and upkeep, then there are some serious obligations due to the people of T&C. In short the property belongs to the people of T&C, and cannot be sold in this lightning quick and quiet manner. Ms Garlick and the British government need to ensure that this does not happen, otherwise they will be responsible for short-changing T&C citizens. Most assuredly their intention is not to short-change the people of T&C. Ben Roberts is a Turks & Caicos Islander. He is a newsletter editor, freelance writer, and published author. He is the author of numerous articles that have been carried by a variety of Internet websites and read worldwide. He is often published in Turks & Caicos new media, and in the local newspapers where he resides. His action adventure novel Jackals of Samarra, can be found at www.iUniverse.com, Amazon.com, and at most of the major Internet book outlet sites. He can be contacted by email by visiting his website: www.jackalsofsamarra.com, or alternately by emailing to: grandt730@aol.com   Reads : 427 Back... Comments: No comments on this topic yet. Be the first one to submit a comment. Back... Send us your comments!   Send us your comments on this article for publication in our Readers' Forum or as a Letter to the Editor. All fields are required and in the interest of openness and transparency we will no longer accept anonymous submissions. 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