By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

ATTORNEY General Ryan Pinder revealed yesterday the Minnis administration paid some $1.1 million on the failed “political” prosecutions of former Cabinet minister Shane Gibson and former PLP Senator Frank Smith.

Mr Pinder made the revelation while delivering his first contribution in the Senate, where he roundly criticised his predecessor’s performance in office and also castigated certain spending practices made by the Office of the Attorney General under the previous government.

The minister told senators that because of past decisions made by his predecessor, he now has “a lot to fix.”

 “I would be remiss not to say that if I had made the decisions in the private sector that my predecessor did while he was the Attorney General I would most definitely be found to have committed malpractice and certainly would have been fired by my clients. Madam (President), I guess his clients, the Bahamian people did in fact fire him and his colleagues on September 16,” Mr Pinder said.

 “… Unfortunately, there are several anomalies and questionable decisions by my predecessor that upon taking office, in just seven short weeks as Attorney General, have come to light that I think the responsible thing to do is to let the Bahamian people know.”

 Speaking on the former government’s legal expenses, Mr Pinder disclosed the Minnis administration had expended nearly $3.5m in legal fees. However, this was not alarming, he added.

 “Between November, 2017 and August, 2021, the Office of the Attorney General, under the prior Attorney General, spent some $3,457,688.18 in legal fees with its two primary foreign law firms in the United States and the United Kingdom.  This isn’t really alarming as the government of The Bahamas has a need to source legal advice from all over the world,” he said.

 “What is alarming, Madam President, is the amount of funds expended on the failed political prosecutions.”

 Pointing to the prosecutions of Mr Gibson and Mr Smith, Mr Pinder revealed some $1.1m of Bahamian taxpayers’ money was spent by the former administration to carry out the “political” prosecution exercises.

 The majority of those funds was spent on Mr Gibson’s prosecution case, according to Mr Pinder.

 He said: “The former Attorney General spent $807,755 of the Bahamian taxpayers’ dollars with foreign lawyers on the prosecution of Shane Gibson and $290,903 on the prosecution of Frank Smith, two political prosecutions that failed. Added together, Madam Speaker, the former government spent approximately $1.1 million on failed political prosecutions.

 “This is an astonishing 30 percent of all of the fees paid to the government’s primary foreign law firms over a four-year period on all matters in the country. Thirty-two percent, unconscionable. This is in addition to the time taken by the respective attorneys from the Department of Public Prosecutions whose time clearly would have been better served prosecuting legitimate criminals in The Bahamas.”

 Calls requesting the costs of cases to be made public were made after Mr Gibson and Mr Smith were both acquitted of bribery charges in 2019.

 Mr Gibson was acquitted of 15 counts of bribery after being accused of allegedly soliciting and accepting thousands of dollars from Jonathan Ash to expedite payments the government owed the contractor.

 Meanwhile, Mr Smith was acquitted of charges of allegedly abusing his position as Public Hospitals Authority chairman to demand and receive bribes from Barbara Hanna over the award of a 2016 cleaning contract.