Statement from the Foreign Minister on the Senate Passing the Foreign Service Bills

Bahamas Foreign Minister the Hon. Frederick A. Mitchell, MP.

11th February 2025. Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas. I wish to thank the PLP’s team in the Senate who passed the Foreign Service bills in the upper house today. The passage of the bills completes the legislative steps to bring into force a new Foreign Service regime.

It has been a long journey for me and this legislative work brings into fruition ideas and thoughts which began in my head as a columnist for the PLP’s newspaper back from 1981 to 1983 when I ran The Herald and wrote a column called The World Stage. The column was devoted exclusively to Foreign Affairs.

I repeat this experience for the younger politicians in our party who may be impatient of the debates and the passage of time to accomplish their public policy goals. This evening’s journey’s end began for me 44 years ago. I have been blessed to see it accomplished.

Tonight, I could not be prouder of those who piloted the bills to and through Parliament. Each of them were in some shape or form allies in this long journey.

Michael Halkitis, the Leader of the Senate, and mover of the bills, who was a student in the Politics and Government Class when I was the lecturer at the then College of The Bahamas in 1988.

Barry Griffin, Vice President of the Senate, who was the student leader of our party in London when he was in law school with whom both the Prime Minister and I discussed many times the future of our country.

Ryan Pinder, the Attorney General, who I sat with many times at lunch at Luciano’s when making his decision to follow his father Marvin’s footsteps into public life.

Darron Pickstock, our former Chair of the Progressive Young Liberals, who cut his teeth in the struggle as a young man and with whom many ideas were shared about the future and now is executing those ideas.

Randy Rolle, the former Consul General, who served with me when I was Minister in another era.

Indeed to all colleagues of our side who spoke, I say thank you. This includes Senators J’Ann Major and James Turner Rolle.

I am certain that the family and colleagues of the late Alrae Ramsey, after whom the Foreign Service Institute was named, are grateful for the passage of the bills.

These bills were passed by this next generation of PLPs. It demonstrates an axiom of my belief that in this country, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. As they were piloting the bills, I and others in the Ministry were fulfilling the Blue Print for Change by the opening of our newest embassy in Abu Dhabi to serve the Bahamians who live in the Middle East. The embassy will be led by Ambassador Tony Joudi.

Now comes the even harder part, and that is the execution of what Parliament has passed.

That is the job of the Director General Jerusa Ali, a young Bahamian woman and her team, who happens to be the daughter of my former headmaster at St Augustine’s College John Dean, the former Fr Bonaventure and his wife my former English teacher Ann Cowper Green.

It’s over to the foreign service officers now to make the dream a further reality.

I hope that my predecessors Lynden Pindling, Paul Adderley, Clement Maynard, and Charles Carter are all proud of the work we have accomplished this day.

Thank you to the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, and the PLP members of the House. Well done, Senators and MPs including Parliamentary Secretary Jamahl Strachan.

God bless the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.

End