Free National Movement (FNM) Chairman Dr. Duane Sands wound up with egg on his face after a viral video showed that Minister of Transport and Housing JoBeth Coleby-Davis was telling the truth when she claimed that police officers allowed her to pass a police barricade without incident at a recent Carnival event.
Sands, who is perhaps still licking his wounds after Coleby-Davis gave him an embarrassing cut hip in the Elizabeth constituency in the 2021 General Election and swiped his seat in the House of Assembly, was quick to release a press statement amid talk that Coleby-Davis was involved in a road traffic incident that led to a police officer being injured.
“Was there indeed a road traffic incident/assault involving a sitting Cabinet Minister? Are the allegations that an automobile was weaponized factual? Did the driver of the vehicle leave the scene of this alleged incident? Was a law-enforcement officer injured and transported to hospital?,” Sands questioned in a statement some viewed as irresponsible as his comments were based on speculation.
A widely-circulated video of the incident shows three police officers standing in the street talking to the driver of a silver SUV before allowing them to pass barricades and directing the driver where to park. The person recording the video is heard saying, “They letting her in.”
In a bid to prove his worth as the new FNM chairman and increase his chance of becoming the FNM candidate for Long Island in the event sitting MP Adrian Gibson has to vacate his seat, Sands repeated hearsay as if it were fact and made serious allegations against the cabinet minister as if he had seen the incident firsthand.
Did Sands meet with the police officer in question prior to the release of his statement or was he simply trying to score cheap political points at the expense of the young woman who reduced him to a one-term MP?
It’s not the first time Sands has stooped to low levels to try and ruin a political opponent. In 2019, he was judicially condemned during the botched Frank Smith trial after it was revealed that Sands, in his capacity as Minister of Health, awarded prosecution witness Barbara Hanna a multi million-dollar PHA contract - without board approval - before she testified against Smith.
After Smith was acquitted of all charges, Sands chose not to renew Hanna’s hefty cleaning contract.
Is this becoming a pattern for Sands, who has not hid his ambitions of one day becoming FNM leader and, eventually, prime minister?
Some sources in the FNM claim the good doctor would be an even worse leader than “one and done” prime minister Dr. Hubert Minnis - as hard as that is to believe.