By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

FORMER Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham gave his most extensive comments about a BEC scandal that began during his second term as prime minister when a French company, Alstorm, was given a contract to supply BEC with a slow speed diesel generation unit only for it to be exposed two years ago that the company bribed a BEC official, Fred Ramsey, in hopes of securing the contract.

The BEC’s board at the time had unanimously recommended that the contract be awarded to a South Korean firm, Hanjung, rather than to its French rival.

But Mr Ingraham’s Cabinet decided not to accept the recommendation.

Although Mr Ramsey has since been convicted of bribery in connection with the matter, it had been unclear how Mr Ingraham’s Cabinet at the time came to reject the unanimous recommendation of BEC’s board.

Mr Ingraham said yesterday that it did so because it discovered that the Korean firm had been connected to a separate bribery matter under a previous Pindling administration.

“The rejection was because this company was associated with a company that paid a bribe under the PLP government,” Mr Ingraham said.

“That was investigated by us and people like (officials in the PLP) were very much involved with this exercise when this bribe was paid.”

Among the people Mr Ingraham said who were aware of the bribe was PLP Chairman Bradley Roberts.

Asked about the matter yesterday, Mr Roberts told The Tribune: “You tell the former prime minister go jump in the deepest hole he could find in The Bahamas.”

Mr Ingraham also said a Cabinet minister in the Christie administration was involved in the matter. That person could not be reached by The Tribune, however.

“I’d be happy to make that file available to you,” he said on Zhivargo Laing’s Guardian Radio show. “The reason why we rejected (the Korean company) was we were not willing to give a company that we knew had paid a bribe in The Bahamas a contract. They then said it was a political contribution. They got (former Prime Minister Lynden) Pindling to write a letter confirming the political contribution. The evidence did not support it because we never got a letter from the PLP confirming their bank account received that money.”

As for Mr Ramsey, Mr Ingraham said: “The person who got the bribe at BEC acted on his own. There are persons who do all manner of things, but the FNM doesn’t go that way. I would be happy to make available my entire file on this.”

Last year, Mr Ramsey was convicted of having received more than $300,000 to influence the awarding of contracts between 1999 and 2003.