By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

FREE National Movement Leader Dr Hubert Minnis yesterday called for all parliamentarians to immediately disclose whether they received any loans from the Bank of the Bahamas (BOB).

Dr Minnis said the disclosure and a thorough forensic audit of the institution were critical to restoring confidence and credibility following reports of the ongoing financial troubles at the bank.

Dr Minnis pointed to reports published in Tribune Business, which stated that BOB Chairman Richard Demeritte admitted that political considerations had influenced past lending decisions at the bank.

However, Mr Demeritte released a statement yesterday that refuted the earlier report.

“I was merely acknowledging that I was aware of perceptions that politically influenced loans had been made in the past,” Mr Demeritte said.

“I was not, however, agreeing to the truth of the matter. Although the perception persists, I have never seen any credible evidence that politically influenced loans were granted by executive management nor requested or instructed to be granted by any board of directors at Bank of The Bahamas. In fact, I would like to use this opportunity to set the record straight that when the loans, which are now in the non-performing category were initially granted, they met all of the qualifications for lending.

“What has changed as a result of the economic climate of recent years is Bank of The Bahamas’ appetite for credit risk. There has been, and will be going forward, a fundamental shift in the appetite for credit risk as we restructure and regain our footing on the path to sustainability,” the chairman added.

Still, Dr Minnis charged that the government uses its people as a “safety net.”

“Instead of fixing the bank they force the people to pay for their mismanagement. Bahamians deserve better, and the first steps to fixing the bank are with transparency and accountability – the time for action is now,” Dr Minnis said.

He added: “When will our government learn? The signs weren’t hard to read - the Bank of The Bahamas has reported over $100 million in losses since the PLP returned to office in 2012.

“The people cannot be expected to continue bailing out the bank. The time for action is now. First, there needs to be a comprehensive forensic audit of the bank by a reputable, independent firm. Secondly, we cannot have ‘the fox guarding the henhouse’ – every member of Parliament should provide the people with full disclosure of the nature and extent to which they or their immediate family members have contributed to BOB being in its present perilous financial state.”

Dr Minnis added: “Do they have – or did they receive – a secured or unsecured loans or any other favourable financial considerations from the bank?”

Dr Minnis also noted the government had paid more than $3.1 million in dividends to the bank’s preference shareholders in the 2015 and 2016 financial years.

He highlighted that the government, a majority shareholder, had been forced to bail out the bank several times - most notably in 2014 when it created Resolve Bahamas.

Resolve is a state-owned and controlled company that was established to assume liability for $100 million of BOB’s non-performing commercial loans.

At the time, BOB had incurred losses in the previous two years, with its most recent quarterly report noting that its shareholders incurred $4.172 million in “red ink.”

Paul McWeeney, then managing director of BOB, advised that none of the troubled commercial loans assigned to Bahamas Resolve would involve “politically exposed” persons.