By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

An ex-prime minister yesterday accused the Government of handing a “$1bn” monopoly to well-connected insiders as he called for the Bahamas Moorings deal to be probed by a newly-created corruption watchdog.

Dr Hubert Minnis, following his mid-year Budget address in the House of Assembly, told Tribune Business his administration had estimated that a properly managed and maintained nationwide moorings and anchorage system could generate as much as $50m per year in revenue.

Based on the now-aborted 21-year lease granted to Bahamas Moorings, he argued that this deal - which gave the company “the right to install and operate mooring services in the Exumas or elsewhere in The Bahamas” - would have generated more than $1bn in income for the company and its owners over its entire lifetime if it was extended to other Family Islands.

Disclosing that the $50m estimate excluded New Providence, Dr Minnis told this newspaper he had held initial discussions about creating a full-owned government “authority” or private-public partnership (PPP) to install, manage and maintain moorings fields outside the Bahamian capital. The latter model would have seen the Government team with a private company, which would have been responsible for overseeing operations.

Explaining that the plan never advanced because his administration became pre-occupied with dealing with Hurricane Dorian’s devastation in late 2019, then the COVID-19 pandemic just six months later, the former prime minister said he was adamantly opposed to the Bahamas Moorings deal’s structure because it concentrated earnings and profits in a private monopoly owned by just a few persons.

Instead, Dr Minnis said both the Authority and PPP model would have ensured a portion of the mooring fees collected from visiting boaters would have been returned to the Family Island communities where these anchorages were located via their local government authorities, thereby helping to grow local economies.

And, given the allegations of “conflict of interest” and other unanswered questions surrounding the Bahamas Moorings deal, Dr Minnis demanded that it “immediately” be referred to the newly-created anti-corruption watchdog, the Independent Commission for Investigations, once all officers and Board members are appointed.

He also urged his successor, Prime Minister Philip Davis KC, “to fire” Sandra Kemp, his office’s deputy director of communications, if she failed to resign over the Bahamas Moorings affair. She witnessed the 21-year lease’s signing on behalf of the company, in which her husband was one of its principals, even though she is an employee of the Government which is a counterparty in the deal.

“I told them that, in 2018, we had looked at it,” Dr Minnis said of a national moorings strategy, and we were going to do an Authority or PPP so that all the monies only go and fund Family Island local governments so that they can advance their islands. At that time, we projected [it could generate] $40m-$50m a year.”

That figure included all islands bar New Providence. Based on the 21-year lease granted to Bahamas Moorings, and the seeming exclusivity granted to it along with the deal’s apparent extension beyond the Exumas, Dr Minnis said if his administration’s annual revenue estimate proved accurate this would have translated into a $1.05bn earnings bonanza across the project’s lifetime.

The ex-prime minister described his administration’s plans for mooring fee income as akin to the funds generated by The Bahamas’ newly-implemented air navigation services fees, which are supposed to finance this nation’s civil aviation regulatory regime and eliminate the need for the latter to be subsidised by the Bahamian taxpayer.

“There should be a national plan for an Authority as we were saying,” Dr Minnis added, “and any money received used for development of the Family Islands. There are some Family Islands that do not generate as much, so they would get extra from the Fund that would have been set up. It cannot just go into the hands of a few individuals.”

Conceding that his administration’s discussions “didn’t get far”, due to Dorian and COVID’s intervention, the Killarney MP described the Bahamas Moorings deal structure as “not right”. He added: “What happened is we were trying to make Exuma a Bahamian boating riviera. We have the swimming pigs, we have the dripping caves of Exuma, we have the turtles, we have swimming with the sharks.”

Demanding that the Bahamas Moorings deal be sent to the Independent Commission of Investigations for further probing, Dr Minnis said: “If they are serious about combating corruption that should be referred to the Independent Commission of Investigations as soon as it is appointed.

“The Prime Minister should make a statement to say this matter will be referred in the interests of transparency, and to show it is serious, to the Independent Commission of Investigations. It went through the debate. They said they were serious about transparency, corruption and honesty. They established the Commission. Now they have one that should go there immediately.

“It’s serious. They gave a $50m a year deal to whoever these oligarchs are. They [the Government] got caught. That’s all.”

As for Mrs Kemp’s role in witnessing the lease on behalf of Bahamas Moorings, even though she is employed by the Government, Dr Minnis blasted: “She should resign. In the absence of her resignation, the Prime Minister has a responsibility to fire her. As a result of her actions and this conflict of interest she must do the honourable thing and resign as deputy director of communications.

“The Prime Minister should demand her resignation immediately and, if the Prime Minister does not demand her resignation, it means he condones such conflicts of interest in his administration. It’s the Prime Minister who must clean up the mess from this scandal. If he does not, it’s clear what message he is sending to the Bahamian people.”

The Prime Minister’s Office, in announcing that both sides had “mutually agreed” that the Bahamas Moorings deal would not proceed, said Mrs Kemp’s role in witnessing the lease’s signing is “under review”. It also quickly announced it plans to develop a national moorings strategy and undertake an inventory of existing moorings - moves likely to be an effort to distract from Bahamas Moorings itself.

Tribune Business previously revealed that many of those involved in the Bahamas Moorings Company deal have close links to the Office of the Prime Minister and senior persons who work in it. The two principals named in the lease, in particular, both have long-standing ties to Jerome Fitzgerald, the Prime Minister’s senior policy adviser.

Philip A. Kemp II is a long-standing business associate of Mr Fitzgerald, the two having been part of the failed BK Foods to acquire the now-defunct City Markets supermarket chain. They later participated in the Trans-Island Traders deal that acquired the same business just prior to its collapse, with Mr Kemp becoming its chief financial officer. A City Markets-related e-mail, sent to Tribune Business at that time, was also copied to Philip A. Kemp II.

And Raymond Christian Knowles, better known by his middle name, is a boat captain with the ‘Pieces of 8’ tour boat and charter operator, where he is described as “a 30-year veteran on the open waters” who has worked as a commercial fisherman. Mr Fitzgerald, in a 2021 interview with Tribune Business, neither confirmed nor denied when asked whether he had an ownership interest in the company.

There are also further connections involving Bahamas Moorings’ address. This newspaper’s own records, plus a VAT registrants list from 2016, reveal that 138 Wulff Road was also once the home of Bahamas Cargo & Logistics (BCL), a company owned by Mr Fitzgerald’s family.

Tribune Business previously reported yesterday how a bill of lading, detailing Bahamas Moorings’ importation of anchors and link chains from China, gives the company’s address as Suite No.5, 138 Wulff Road. That is now the address of Cubix Bahamas which, like Bahamas Cargo & Logistics, is also a shipping company and freight forwarder.

And Mrs Kemp states on her Linkedin page that she has served as “head of marketing communications” for Cubix Bahamas from March 2018 to the “present”.

Bahamas Moorings, as part of its lease deal with the Government, committed to installing 250 moorings at 49 locations in the Exumas via an investment worth $2.5m. In return for leasing a total 4,615 acres from the Government for 21 years, with effect from February 1, 2025, it had agreed to pay an annual rent equal to 3 percent of gross revenue collected from boaters plus 10 percent VAT.

Bahamas Moorings had proposed to charge fees ranging from $25 to $135 per day depending on vessel length, plus fees of between $170 and $250 per day for “super yachts” mooring at its ‘taper buoys again depending on length.

Anchorage fees range from 55 cents per foot per day to $1.10 per foot per day, again depending on boat length. Bahamas Moorings argued that its mooring/anchorage plan would bring order to the present chaos on Bahamian waters by giving boats and yachts designated points where they can tie up, thus preventing damage to the seabed, coral reefs and other ecosystems from anchors dragging.