By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

FREE National Movement Senator Carl Bethel yesterday denied suggestions that his criticism of the Baha Mar winding up process was unpatriotic, calling Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson’s characterisation of him “disingenuous and false”.

Mr Bethel underscored that his criticism on Friday was directed at the government and not the Supreme Court, which recently ruled to appoint provisional liquidators to oversee the stalled mega resort.

He also questioned why the government would bring in foreign liquidators, instead of utilising Bahamian professionals in the winding up process.

“This PLP government has a nasty habit of trying to convert any criticism of their actions into being either an attack upon some other institution or showing a lack of patriotism,” he said.

“They also refuse to take responsibility for their own actions, and resort to name calling.”

“Nothing that I said was an attack upon the courts or the judiciary,” Mr Bethel, a former attorney general, said.

“Judges do not invent orders out of thin air. They rule upon what is placed before them. It is the government which sought the appointment of liquidators of Baha Mar. It is the government which, through the order, has placed the figurative loaded gun to the head of the developer, not the court.”

“Any suggestion by members of the government that criticism of the government’s deliberate actions is a criticism of the courts or Justice Winder is disingenuous and false.”

Justice Ian Winder approved the government’s petition for the appointment of provisional liquidators on Friday, but limited their scope to preventing the depletion of the $3.5 billion resort’s assets.

The judge approved the appointment of a joint provisional liquidator, allowing the government’s application for three professionals from KRyS Global and AlixPartner Services of the United Kingdom to oversee the resort’s affairs.

Shortly after the decision, Mr Bethel said the move “figuratively places a loaded gun to the head of the developer.”

Speaking outside Cabinet on Tuesday, Mrs Maynard-Gibson said she was shocked to hear Mr Bethel make “such serious allegations” given his tenure as former attorney general. She added that she was concerned about what appeared to be a “lack of patriotism” in the FNM.

However, Mr Bethel pointed out that his suspicions that the role of the appointed liquidators would expand without constraint were supported by Mrs Maynard-Gibson’s confirmation that the liquidators will also assume responsibility for staff salaries.

He underscored that the lives of thousands of Bahamians, dependent upon the fate of Baha Mar, were in limbo.

Mr Bethel said: “This government had one job to do in terms of economic development – get Baha Mar open. They have failed miserably and are now compounding their miserable failure. Because the US orders were blocked by the intervention of the government, Baha Mar has no money in the Bahamas to protect its assets, and cannot apparently pay for such protection.

“Hence the government now has to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for foreign provisional liquidators to come to the Bahamas to do a job that the developer could otherwise have done itself. It should be noted that the PLP chose foreigners to lead this process over qualified Bahamians who could as easily have led the process.

He added: “The government needs to accept responsibility for their own actions or inactions, and stop trying to shirk legitimate criticisms of their actions onto other institutions. This government needs to accept responsibility for their own actions, ‘get real’, do their job and get Baha Mar open. Anything less is nothing but wasted air, empty rhetoric and political posturing.”

“All of this twisting of words, rhetoric and misplaced ‘patriotic’ assertions by government members do not in any way advance the cause of those thousands of young Bahamians waiting on the sidelines of national economic development, whose lives are blighted by high unemployment rates, an unrelenting crime wave, and sky-rocketing increases in the cost of living,” Mr Bethel said.