By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

OPPOSITION leader Michael Pintard hopes the Public Accounts Committee will host public hearings as it examines various issues, including Bahamasair costs to Haiti and Cuba.

Last June, the deputy chairman of the Consumer Protection Commission expressed concerns about the selection process surrounding the agency’s latest rental space, and Mr Pintard hopes to release a report on that by March.

He said the PAC is wrapping up interviews with various parties.

“We have written to the speaker in order to do public hearings,” he said. “Unfortunately, she declined to allow us to use the precincts of the House where the cameras are already in place, so we’re making arrangements now to rent a facility for public hearing.”

“We are going to look at the air freight tax that the government was seeking to introduce just recently and the circumstances surrounding that. We will also look at some of the audited reports around the Ministry of Finance when this administration was last in office.

“We will be looking at all matters related to Bahamasair, including the remarkable amount of money we are losing on the route going into Haiti as well as Cuba, and trying to understand why the books in New Providence suggest one thing and the books otherwise or the receipts are showing something else.”

“We also want to look at what is motivating the purchase of some of the airlines and also examine whether or not the government has acted against recommendations that they would have gotten from experts on what airlines they ought to have purchased.”

“We’re looking at the Ministry of Transport, and the series of matters that involve their minister making decisions that she was warned against making, and the government then decided to sideline a senior public servant who stood up for proper regulations in that ministry and then, of course, immigration is another area we’re going to look at that carefully.”