Wednesday, December 24, 2014
By NEIL HARTNELL
Tribune Business Editor
nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
The $300,000 bribe paid to secure a Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) deal was yesterday described as a national embarrassment, the DNA’s leader suggesting the revelation gave “credence” to claims this nation was corrupt.
Branville McCartney, who has frequently spoken out against corruption, said Tribune Business’s exclusive revelations were an example of the corruption that “transcends” the Bahamas, costing this nation and its people millions of dollars annually.
This newspaper reported on Tuesday how the French energy giant, Alstom (formerly ABB), admitted as part of a $772 million plea bargain settlement with the US Justice Department that it had bribed an unnamed Bahamian ‘official’ to ensure it won the bid to supply BEC with a slow speed diesel generation unit in 2001.
“That is just one instance of the corruption that transcends throughout the Bahamas and under successive administrations,” Mr McCartney blasted yesterday. “It costs the Bahamian people millions and millions of dollars a year.”
Describing the Alstom ‘confession’ as something that “embarrasses the Bahamas”, the DNA leader added: “It gives credence to persons saying we are a corrupt country. It gives credence to persons saying they can’t do business in this country, because everyone has their hands out. That’s a shame.”
Meanwhile, Bradley Roberts, the PLP chairman, who raised concerns over the Alstom deal when he became minister with responsibility for BEC in 2002, yesterday urged the Government to launch a formal probe into the contract award.
“I am of the view that the Government of the Bahamas should cause an investigation to be launched into the Alstom (former ADD) deal,” he said in a statement.
“The governments of the Bahamas and the US have in place information exchange agreements, so the Attorney General can access the relevant facts and identities of the persons involved under the terms and conditions of this exchange agreement.”
Mr Roberts reiterated that BEC’s Board under the first Ingraham administration had unanimously recommended that the contract be awarded to the South Korean firm, Hanjung, rather than the rival Alstom/ABB bid.
Yet, as Tribune Business has confirmed via other sources in a position to know, the BEC Board recommendation was overturned by the Ingraham Cabinet, which awarded the bid to Alstom.
“It would be very interesting to know what additional and compelling information the Ingraham Cabinet had in its possession that would have driven them to overturn a unanimous board decision,” Mr Roberts said yesterday.
“As the head of the Cabinet between 1999 and 2001, I am very interested in what Hubert Ingraham knows about this contract debacle.”
Frank Watson, the former deputy prime minister who had responsibility for BEC at the time of the ‘bribery’ events detailed in the Alstom plea bargain, said he had no knowledge or suspicions that anything untoward might have been happening.
He told this newspaper on Tuesday that the bids were evaluated by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which was “satisfied” that the Government should go with Alstom/ABB.
Multiple Tribune Business sources, well-placed at the time the diesel generator contract was awarded to Alstom, said wider ‘national interests’ may have influenced the Cabinet’s decision on the bid.
This newspaper was told that by awarding the contract to Alstom, the then-Cabinet hoped to find favour with the Spanish government (multiple contacts said Spanish, even though Alstom is French) who, as a Financial Action Task Force (FATF) member, might then help the Bahamas get off that organisation’s financial services ‘blacklist’.
The ‘blacklisting’ was dominating government policy and attention at the time, and Tribune Business was told that the BEC contract was discussed at the highest levels on a government-to-government basis. The Bahamas was removed from the ‘blacklist’ in 2001, some months after the Alstom/ABB award.
Mr McCartney, meanwhile, said corruption of the kind detailed in the Alstom ‘plea bargain’ only hurt the Bahamian people and taxpayers.
“It’s not only the actual corruption, it’s not only the $300,000 bribe paid, but the effect of it; the millions and millions of dollars it cost to get this deal done,” he added.
Tribune Business revealed on Tuesday that the delay in commissioning Alstom’s DA 12 generator resulted in BEC’s customers (the Bahamian people) incurring an extra $14 million in fuel costs.
“This happens throughout, and is continuing to happen,” Mr McCartney said. “It’s been going on for years. Let’s not fool ourselves. There’s been corruption going on for many years.”
The DNA leader said that, unfortunately, many Bahamians had come to “accept” such practices as the norm, believing mistakenly that it did not impact them.
“To some extent, they have come to accept government being inept and no good,” Mr McCartney added.
He suggested that the costs imposed by corruption were one factor that had led to Value-Added Tax’s (VAT) implementation, warning of a complete absence of accountability surrounding the new tax regime.
Pointing to the Government’s confusion over how much it will cost to restructure BEC (between $5 million to $500 million), and spending on BAMSI, Mr McCartney charged: “These are the persons that are going to be overseeing VAT without a Freedom of Information Act, without a proper Fiscal Responsibilities Act, without a proper Whistleblowers Protection Act, and any mechanisms to provide transparency.”
Comments
TheMadHatter says...
Mr. McCartney is absolutely correct in all aspects of this article.
The Bahamian people keep voting for the same-old same-old, and now they get the pay the price for it.
Where is the banding together as Bahamians?
Why doesn't the retailers association come together and say we are going to strike on Feb 1st 2015 if a proper Freedom of Information Act is not in place and FULLY functional by then? Let's shut the Bahamas down unless they do it. It is killing people every day. People are dying because they cannot afford to eat healthy food. Cannot afford to raise their children properly and they end up getting in gangs and getting killed. This is serious business.
Only 8% of voters voted for the DNA. So that means that 92% of voters are happy with the way the Bahamas has been run for the past 42 years.
Truly disgusting.
**TheMadHatter**
Posted 24 December 2014, 9:32 p.m. Suggest removal
RobMillard says...
The Bahamas has been performing quite well in terms of anti-corruption, actually, if one looks at the annual rankings published by Transparency International. In 2014, the Bahamas was ranked 24th out of 175 countries, in roughly the same bandwidth as Austria (23rd,) the United Arab Emirates (25th) and France (26th.) See http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/. In the Caribbean region, only Barbados (17th - same as the USA) ranked higher. This incident could damage the country's ranking if not properly dealt with, though.
Posted 26 December 2014, 8:30 a.m. Suggest removal
asiseeit says...
Transparency International can kiss my grits. They have no idea as to how corrupt The Bahamas is. Whatever methods they use do NOT paint a true picture as to what anmd how corruption is and works in this infested country. THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BAHAMAS IS CORRUPT TO THE BONE!
Posted 29 December 2014, 8 a.m. Suggest removal
ThisIsOurs says...
Baaahhhaahha...sorry I'm not laughing at you. I'm not sure which shady characters these TI people got their information from, but perhaps they can get some investigators down here to ask the PRIME MINISTER about a 650 million dollar apparently secret contract for work that was already contracted and that nobody wants to explain. Once they get that answer they can find out how 4 medium size building structures can cost 50 million dollars. Then they need to head over to Leslie Miller to ask him where he got 100,000 in CASH to pay an OVERDUE electricity bill. Find Mrs Kohlrautz (sp) as well and ask her about her settlement. They may also want to find out from the DPM if there are any other 2million dollar estates that canbe bought for 200,000. Find out what's going on at BUT as well the president and treasurer were just "suspended". I'm not sure if they can get an answer but maybe they could also find out how a lunch vendor gets appointed Deputy Director over a multimillion dollar department immediately after the election. I'd really be appreciative if they found out what mysterious substance was that Nygard injected up his veins while PLP MP's looked on proudly. Nygard seemed to be very relaxed after the injection.
Corruption is killing us RobMilard
Posted 29 December 2014, 7:17 p.m. Suggest removal
ObserverOfChaos says...
HAHAHAHAHA...and anyone is surprised by this news? Really? Just continue down the road of stupidity and ignorance Bahamas, and others will/already have step in to take your place as a destination....both for tourist and business interest......dumb....
Posted 28 December 2014, 11:22 a.m. Suggest removal
Well_mudda_take_sic says...
J. Barrie Farrington is a well known Uncle Tom who has spent his entire career in the hotel industry shafting the Bahamian people, much like Ed Fields and Robert "Sandy" Sands. His outrage over the recently disclosed bribery incident should have been exceeded by his outrage many years ago when the decision of the BEC Board that he chaired was over ridden by Frank Watson. But Barrie Farrington was only too content back then to remain silent, even though he must have known full well that money was changing hands at a "higher level" to over ride the decision of the BEC Board he chaired. To put it politely, Barrie has only himself to blame for the "silent" duplicitous role that he has ended up playing in the BEC bribery incident more than a decade ago that has since cost all Bahamians undue hardship in the exorbitant levels of their light bills received from BEC. Farrington should hang his head in shame and should himself be subject to a full blown investigation for not having spoken up at the time the decision of the BEC Board that he chaired was over ridden. QED!
Posted 30 December 2014, 6:47 p.m. Suggest removal
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