By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The only Bahamian contractor known to have taken legal action against China Construction America (CCA) for Baha Mar non-payment yesterday said he was left “heartbroken” when it fired his wife “the same day” the writ was served.

Franklyn Robinson, who trades as Ben Moore Toote Development Company, told Tribune Business that his wife was left “hurt and embarrassed” at being dismissed from her job as an accountant for the Chinese state-owned contractor.

He added that she was escorted off CCA’s premises by security guards, having received a notice of dismissal from the company’s attorneys the same day that his company’s writ was served on the company.

Mr Robinson, who is suing CCA for “breach of contract”, due to it having allegedly paid just 3 per cent of an agreed $178,862 for cleaning services at the Baha Mar project site, said he had been left “out of pocket” as a result.

Ben Moore Toote, which at its peak employed some 140 persons, has been forced to cease business, and Mr Robinson said CCA had failed to deliver on numerous promises that payment would be forthcoming.

Sean Moree, an attorney with McKinney, Bancroft & Hughes, which represents CCA and its Bahamian subsidiary, did not respond to a Tribune Business e-mail seeking comment on Mr Robinson’s allegations before press time last night.

However, the Ben Moore Toote principal yesterday said “total chaos” and “disorganisation” characterised the Baha Mar construction site in the weeks leading up to the project’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing in late June 2015.

He revealed to Tribune Business that there were “battles between” contractors hired directly by Baha Mar (original developer Sarkis Izmirlian and his team) and those contracted by CCA.

And construction workers would frequently use rooms previously cleaned by Ben Moore Toote as a restroom, “defecating all over the place”.

Still, Mr Robinson conceded that he is now seeking legal advice from his attorneys, Lockhart & Company, as to whether to withdraw the action against CCA as a result of Prime Minister Perry Christie’s announcement on Monday night.

Mr Christie, in unveiling the Government’s agreement with the China Export-Import Bank for Baha Mar’s construction completion, said the terms included CCA resolving the issue of outstanding payments to its sub-contractors and suppliers, which would include Ben Moore Toote Development Company.

This implies that Mr Robinson and his firm should recover at least some of the $172,912 balance they claim to be owed.

However, in its April 12, 2016, defence to his claim, CCA challenged both the contract sum and whether Ben Moore Toote Development Company delivered the required standard and quality of work.

“I just sent an e-mail to my lawyer asking for advice on the matter, and I have not received a response as yet,” Mr Robinson told Tribune Business, as he seeks to determine his legal action’s fate.

“I’m waiting to hear from Lockhart & Company as to what their advice is. I’ll wait to hear from them, and then decide if I will retain the action or discontinue it.”

He added that Lockhart & Company had previously suggested to him that a settlement with CCA would be forthcoming, but then McKinney, Bancroft & Hughes filed a defence on the contractor’s behalf with the Supreme Court.

“My side is saying there will be a settlement, but the only settlement I got was a defence,” Mr Robinson said ruefully. “So I don’t have any trust in anything they [CCA] say.”

Mr Robinson said the matter was now in case management, and the two parties would not be back before the Supreme Court until next year.

He also acknowledged that the Prime Minister’s announcement was “vague”, adding: “There’s no specifics in terms of the agreement.”

Mr Robinson, though, alleged that his family - and especially his Chinese wife - had already paid a price for daring to initiate legal action against CCA (Bahamas).

“The day that they were served with the writ, they fired her,” he told Tribune Business. “The same day.

“She received a notice of dismissal from their lawyers; there was not engagement with the human resources department. It was so embarrassing, and she was very distressed with the action they took. They came to get her, and had security escort her off the premises. No explanation, no nothing. Just get out. It was heartbreaking. She’s very hurt.”

Mr Robinson said his wife came to the Bahamas initially to work on the Airport Gateway roads project, before being transferred to CCA for Baha Mar and then The Pointe project at the British Colonial Hilton.

Following Ben Moore Toote’s shut down after the non-Baha Mar payment, Mr Robinson said he and his wife had been surviving on her salary until her dismissal.

“Just before the announcement of the bankruptcy filing, I inquired about payment because payment had been due from April,” Mr Robinson said of his requests that CCA pay what was owed.

“What was said to me was: ‘Pay the people as best you can’. We were different from other companies, which were paying bills for service. I was paying for labour.

“I was providing salaries that came from my pocket, and I paid those people under the promise I would be reimbursed, and it never materialised,” he continued.

“To this day, CCA has not sent me a single piece of paper to say what happened. It was just: Shop closed. That was it.”

Mr Robinson said that at its peak, Ben Moore Toote was responsible for paying and hiring some 140 persons for work at the Baha Mar construction site.

Some 45 were still working when the company had to cease business, with Mr Robinson explaining that it was contracted to “clean for the whole project; everything that needed cleaning - be it hotel rooms, the casino and the convention centre.

“It came to the point where they had lost control on-site,” Mr Robinson told Tribune Business, painting a picture of a “disorganised” and “totally chaotic” development prior to the Chapter 11 filing.

He revealed that new carpets were being laid in rooms and corridors that were still being painted, and added: “The major problem we [Ben Moore Toote] were having is that workers would go into a room after cleaning the room and defecate all over the place.”

Mr Robinson also disclosed the “battle between” contractors hired respectively by Baha Mar and CCA, with frequent clashes between the two occurring during the race to meet the missed March 27, 2015, opening deadline.

“CCA told us to hold our position, as Baha Mar did not have the authority to run us out of the hotel because it was not turned over to them,” he told Tribune Business.

“We’d clean a bathroom, and then another company would come in and clean the bathroom. I felt they were using us at the end.”