By Rashad Rolle

Tribune News Editor

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

FREE National Movement Leader Michael Pintard accused Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis of an “astounding collection of mistruths and deflections” related to the partial collapse of a structure under construction at RM Bailey Senior High School.

 On Friday, the Ministry of Works released a statement that included details that it did not intend for the public. The ministry asked the press not to publish the information, which included an admission that the contractor did not have a contract, risk, or liability insurance.

 Mr Davis later told the press the contractor had an oral contract that was supposed to be “reduced to writing”.

 He said the contractor decided to self-insure until “all of the dots and t’s were crossed”.

 “The opposition is dismayed by the astounding collection of mistruths and deflections the prime minister and his minister of works have sought to drop on the Bahamian people once again in the aftermath of the roof collapse at the RM Bailey Construction site,” Mr Pintard said yesterday.

“First, the prime minister and Minister Sears, with a straight face, told the Bahamian people that the roof collapse that everyone saw was not in fact a collapsed roof. The PLP is now at the point where they will say anything to cover their obvious ineptitude. Fortunately, the Bahamian people know very well what they saw.

“Then, the prime minister suggested that the contractor had an oral contract for a project that would be valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars at minimum. This is rubbish, plain and simple. The Procurement Acts of 2021 and 2023 require that a project of this size be approved by the agency’s Tenders Committee or the Public Procurement Board, depending on the contract value.”

 “The committee and board would not give consideration to an oral contract proposal, nor would they approve a waiver of the requirement for proper insurance coverage. By law, no procurement contract can be awarded unless the process prescribed by law is followed –– anything else is an illegal contract.

 “The issue of so-called ‘self-insurance’ held by the contractor is almost certainly a grand fiction concocted on the spot by the prime minister,” it was alleged. “He knows well from the BAMSI debacle that the standing government policy is that all public projects of this type require express insurance coverage. The contractor has no option to ‘take on the risk’. Unless the prime minister can provide evidence that the contractor has established a separate legal entity appropriately funded to provide insurance for the contractor’s business interests, then no self-insurance exists. How many other illegal contracts are currently in place with nothing more than a handshake and a wink? We demand that the prime minister provides evidence that the tenders committee did its review and approval. We further demand that the government provide a full accounting of all projects for which there are only ‘oral contracts’ in place and for which there is no appropriate insurance coverage.

 “It is my understanding that a senior member of the engineering team did not support the construction of the truss with the size of the lumber used, neither did the technical team support the construction of the pavilion in that particular area of the campus for reasons that included the safety and security of the student population. If this is the case, who overrode the prudent advice of the public officers at the ministry? We cannot have a renegade government that believes that it is above the law and can do as it pleases. If there are more examples of this wanton recklessness and illegality, then the responsible ministers must resign. Enough is enough.”

 In 2015, a fire destroyed a dormitory at the Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Sciences Institute in North Andros. It was later revealed that the building was not insured. Mr Davis was the minister of works at the time.