Police Corruption Live and in Color in The Bahamas

Corruption in The Bahamas

By Franklyn Robinson

What makes that video so damaging is not only what was said, but what it signaled: the ease, the confidence, and the procedural choreography of a roadside stop being turned into a private “arrangement” — “can’t be too obvious,” “too much people around,” “go out of the view.”  That is not the language of lawful enforcement; it is the language of a shakedown.  And the public outrage is justified because the scene described in the reports was not a lone officer acting in isolation — it was a staffed roadblock with multiple officers stopping multiple vehicles near St Matthew’s Anglican Church off Shirley Street.

If the Royal Bahamas Police Force wants the public to believe this is “not reflective of standards,” then the response cannot be generic.  The Force has already confirmed it is investigating the matter after reviewing the circulating video.

Now the burden is transparency, not slogans.  The public should be shown the written operational order that authorised that specific roadblock: who ordered it, what lawful purpose it served, the time window, the command structure on scene, and the enforcement output (warnings/tickets issued, vehicles seized, arrests made).  Because without that, the reasonable conclusion in the public mind is exactly what the video communicates: an organised environment where leverage is created in public and monetised in private.

And it gets worse when you widen the lens.  The tourist in the footage said he rented a scooter near the cruise port and produced a contract, while the officer raised concerns about the scooter being damaged.

That is not a minor side issue — it is a second corruption channel sitting beside the first: unsafe or improperly regulated rentals being put onto Bahamian roads, and then tourists (and Bahamians) being trapped between defective equipment and discretionary enforcement.  If a vehicle is unroadworthy, then the system’s priority should be safety and compliance — not extracting money to “make it go away.”

If a rental operation is legitimate, it should be licensed, traceable, insured, and operating vehicles that are demonstrably fit for the road.  The Road Traffic (Vehicle Inspection) Regulations are explicit that vehicles must have a valid certificate of inspection, owners must present the vehicle for further inspection before expiry, and inspection certificates are not to be transferred between vehicles.

In addition, the Road Traffic Department’s own published guidance for public service vehicles states inspections are conducted twice per year (May and October).  A tourist rental scooter being on the street in questionable condition, tied to an informal rental source near the cruise port, is a flashing sign that regulation and enforcement are not being applied consistently.

This is why the “bad apple” framing fails.  A roadblock is not a private one-on-one interaction; it is an operation.

The moment an officer can tell someone to step out of view and “work something out,” the question becomes systemic: what supervision was present, what culture is tolerated, what discipline is actually enforced, and why so many Bahamians recognise the script immediately.  The Tribune report itself notes the clip triggered widespread condemnation, precisely because the public read it as brazen, familiar misconduct — not as an unimaginable anomaly.

The political dimension cannot be ducked either.  When this kind of conduct becomes normalised, it is not only a policing problem; it is governance decay.

It seeps into licensing, inspection, enforcement discretion, and the quiet tolerance of “small corruption” as if it is harmless.  It is not harmless.  It is reputationally catastrophic for a tourism economy, corrosive to public trust, and financially predatory to ordinary Bahamians who cannot afford to buy their way out of inconvenience.  And every time leadership responds with vague statements rather than hard disclosures, it reads like protection of the institution over protection of the country.

So, yes: the encounter is shameful — not merely because it embarrasses The Bahamas internationally, but because it reflects an out-of-control culture where too many people believe government-facing systems can be navigated by side-payments, favours, and quiet arrangements.  If the country is serious about cleaning it up, the standard must be simple and public: publish the roadblock authorisation trail, disclose the command accountability, identify the rental operator pathway that put that scooter on the road, and show enforcement outcomes that match the gravity of what the public saw and heard — not “investigation” as a holding pattern, but consequences that make the next officer think twice before trying to turn a public duty into a private hustle.

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