The financial declarations of the candidates nominated to run in the upcoming general election were published on Monday. There were 54 people vying for seats who are worth more than $1 million.
Free National Movement (FNM) Candidate for Garden Hills, former NBA player, Rick Fox led the pack with a whopping $469 million net worth with an annual income of $4.8 million. Next on the list was the Progressive Liberal Party’s (PLP) Fort Charlotte candidate, Sebastian Bastian who declared a $28.9 million worth with less then $1 million in income annually. Deputy Prime Minister and PLP candidate for Exuma and Ragged Island, the Hon. Chester Cooper declared $28 million with a $324,000 annual salary.
Fidelity Bank Chief Executive Officer, Gowon Bowe commented on the declarations saying they are unaudited and not subject to independent verification. He said, “I think that if we’re going to place any real reliance on these submissions there’s need to be some independent attestation process. There certainly needs to be an education process on what basis of accounting that these things included.”
It was noticed the several incumbents reported large increases in the net worth since the last general election nomination process in 2021. Among them were the Hon. Keith Bell whose worth increased from just over $1 million to nearly $4 million. Kirk Cornish of North Abaco declared about $144,000 in 2021 compared to more than $800,000 this year with more than $300,000 in the bank up from $21,000.”
According to Bowe there may be perfectly legitimate reasons for the growth. He said, “I think that it is worthwhile or it is worthy to challenge whether or not the change in circumstances represents new assets being added and what is the basis for that. But the starting premise for that is going to be that all of the declarations are independently validated against supporting documents.”
Candidates are all required to declare the finances as part of the nomination process.
