mr president and your excellencies as home to the third oldest parliamentary democracy
in the western hemisphere the commerce of the bahamas applauds this initiative to take steps
to strengthen democracy and human rights the three broad themes of this summit embrace many of the
initiatives which are already in place or underway in our country in the fight against corruption
we already compliant with the fatf regarding beneficial ownership of entities we confirm
that we have already implemented measures to enhance transparency on real estate ownership and
legislation is already in place to enforce bans on foreign bribery we've also implemented legislation
which transformed the public procurement process of the government making it more transparent
approximately 80 days ago the bahamian people elected my government with an overwhelming mandate
this was in part in reaction against the previous
administration's decision to suspend crucial civil liberties for a period of 18 months
and address the covet-19 pandemic via a prolonged state of emergency under the rule of one man
we made the decision not to renew the state of emergency instead we will follow constitutional
norms and implement public health measures via more transparent and accountable legislation
in respect of rights and freedoms pertaining to the media during the election campaign
we ourselves needed to seek redress from our well-established independent media regulator
which has been effective in maintaining open and fair access to the internet and other media
in opposition we are also subject to exclusion by the state-owned broadcaster we intend
to remedy the latter ills regarding the third theme of the summit pertaining to human rights
i'm extremely proud to report that my parliamentary caucus not only has the
highest number of women ever represented in the game in history but we also have a female speaker
of the lower chamber a female president of the senate and during my absence abroad last week
a female acting prime minister mr president today on each of the three themes of the summit
my government once again commits to continuing and securing all of these important initiatives
but even as we fulfill our domestic agenda we recognize that the historic roots of attack on
democracy have been superseded tyranny can creep in not just via the bullet but via misinformation
via false advertising the fake profile or boat all of which fracture trust within our societies
but the technology which enables this mischief sits outside of our jurisdiction
and so we are severely constrained in how we addressed it and so i urge our friends
in the host democracies of these technology diets to take appropriate steps to rein in
these insidious threats which do so much to poison the discourse in all of our countries
as we approach 50 years as a fully independent sovereign nation on behalf of the government and
people of the commerce of bahamas thank you for the invitation to participate in this noble effort