By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

DOCUMENTS suggest the government has authorised a deal that would use lease payments allegedly owed to Leslie Miller’s Summerwinds Plaza companies to clear his more than $30.5m Bank of The Bahamas bailout debt and millions in real property taxes.

However, Damian Gomez, KC, Mr Miller’s attorney and a former minister of state for legal affairs, told Tribune Business yesterday that “we have not yet finalised” a settlement in the long-running dispute over the government’s alleged breaches of several lease agreements for public agencies to rent space at the Summerwinds Plaza complex off Tonique Williams Highway.

He spoke after Tribune Business reviewed documents suggesting the government has taken steps toward an arrangement in which rent allegedly owed to Mr Miller and his companies would be used to offset more than $30m owed to Bahamas Resolve, the bailout vehicle that removed $267m in toxic commercial loans from Bank of The Bahamas’ balance sheet, as well as at least $5.1 in outstanding real property taxes.

An internal government memorandum dated June 27, 2025, said: “Having regard to Cabinet conclusion ICO (24) 44th meeting, regular conclusion one, the Cabinet authorised the offset of amounts owed by Summerwinds to Resolve Bahamas and real property tax against payments owed under the various lease agreements for Summerwinds.

The latest real property tax bills for part of Summerwinds Plaza, which has housed the Road Traffic Department since 2024, appear to show the offset may already have been applied.

Real property taxes due on the now-closed Mario’s Bowling and Entertainment Palace were listed at $2.113m in 2025, with some arrears dating back to 2009. However, the 2026 tax bill shows only $70,140 owing, suggesting the earlier multi-million dollar sum was wiped out.

Several sources suggested that, as of 2025, total real property taxes due on Summerwinds Plaza, including arrears and current sums, exceeded $5m, although this could not be confirmed before press time.

Mr Gomez confirmed that an offset between outstanding rents, real property tax debts and Bahamas Resolve debts is the settlement concept under discussion, but said he was unaware of the apparent real property tax move.

“They’ve done it already? They’ve not sent me any written confirmation,” he said. “That means they would have already changed the books, but they haven’t yet told us that.

“I will call and find out what’s going on. You have more information than me. They have not sent anything to me in writing; confirmation in writing of what we verbally agreed to.”

Mr Gomez said the government memorandum and the apparent real property tax offset were consistent with what had been discussed during settlement talks.

“That’s reflective of what I have personally agreed to,” he said. “I’ve got an informal arrangement agreed to, but I’m waiting for a document. I’ve been patient, but that’s as much as I can say. We have been negotiating, but we have not yet finalised and resolved it. I’m not sure whether it will be resolved before the election is over. This has been a rather messy affair.”

Tribune Business reported in 2020 that it had seen written suggestions that the government then faced as much as $66m in liability to Mr Miller over unpaid rent.

Mr Gomez said yesterday that the government’s “position is about $20m short of what is owed in rent. Up until this year, those leases have not been abandoned by the Government”.

Mr Miller confirmed that negotiations with the government are continuing and said nothing has been settled. He said his family would be “very grateful” if what he described as a 13-year saga is brought to an end.

However, he said he had “never seen” the 2025 and 2026 real property tax bills for “Mario’s Bowling Lane”, adding that they would have been sent to Bahamas Resolve because the special purpose vehicle has “control” of Summerwinds Plaza through the loan security over it. Bank of The Bahamas, which is listed on BISX, has assigned all interest in the loan to Bahamas Resolve.

Mr Miller, one of the Progressive Liberal Party’s top general election campaigners, said he has been meeting voters seven days a week and has visited all 41 constituencies. He said talks with the government have yet to produce a settlement.

“Nothing yet. We are working on it,” he said. “I’ve been in discussions with them for the last 13 years.

“Our lease went through, and was approved by, Parliament in 2013. For the first time in the history of The Bahamas, it went through Parliament, Then we started construction on the building, went to Bank of The Bahamas and they couldn’t come up with a loan to build. It went downhill from there. We had some discussions with Minnis and those. They just let the leases run but never paid any rent.”

Mr Miller said the government’s UK attorneys advised that he held binding, valid lease agreements and that the agreements should be honoured, but this did not happen.

“That’s where it is now,” he said. “God is still good. We’ll see what the PLP is going to do. Plenty money, and I wish we could get some of it. My family will be very grateful. That doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.”

Asked about the apparent offset of $2.113m in real property tax accumulated between 2009 and 2025 for Mario’s Bowling and Entertainment Palace, Mr Miller said: “To be honest with you, I’ve never seen any of them [bills]. I have not seen them. I have not seen the new one. They [Bahamas Resolve] have control of the property. It’s on them to settle; nothing to do with us.”

James Gomez, the Ecovis Bahamas accountant and partner who chairs Bahamas Resolve, said he was travelling and could not comment when contacted by Tribune Business.

This newspaper understands that the $30.5m loan originally extended to Mr Miller by Bank of The Bahamas and secured on Summerwinds Plaza’s real estate assets remains on Bahamas Resolve’s books and has not yet been settled or offset. Bahamas Resolve’s board would also have to approve such a move.

Any offset settlement is likely to draw political scrutiny, particularly from the Free National Movement, because critics may view it as the endpoint of a decade-long effort by two PLP administrations to use public money to rescue Mr Miller’s private interests.

That scrutiny is likely to intensify because the $9.846m breach-of-contract damages awarded to Mr Miller and his companies in 2020 by Justice Cheryl Grant-Thompson was later overturned by the Court of Appeal and sent back to the Supreme Court for a fresh trial before a different judge.

Some critics are likely to argue that there is no judgment debt to offset against the mortgage and real property tax debts because the nearly $10m award against the Attorney General and Treasurer over the five Summerwinds Plaza lease agreements was overturned.

However, Mr Gomez said in September 2021 that he consented to the appeal’s success because both sides were negotiating a settlement to avoid further litigation.

The Court of Appeal’s decision came just weeks after the Davis administration was elected. Negotiations have now apparently dragged into their fifth year, and no effort appears to have been made in the meantime to move the legal proceedings forward.

Mr Miller, a former Cabinet minister in the first Christie administration, argued that the government’s failure to honour the lease payments and make combined annual rental payments exceeding $4.5m left his company unable to repay Bank of The Bahamas.

The PLP-controlled House of Assembly passed a resolution in 2014 allowing Mr Miller and his companies to enter rental contracts to lease space to government agencies.

Two leases were entered into for the Summerwinds complex in May and June 2013, but “significant renovations and structural work” were required to prepare the property for government agencies.

Financing for the upgrades was obtained from Bank of The Bahamas through a $2.5m “upstamping” of the mortgage it held on Summerwinds. Mr Miller and his companies received $185,000, but nothing more, and the former MP alleged that the bank breached the contract to finance the renovations.

The 2013 leases were replaced by new leases agreed between Mr Miller and the Christie administration in 2016.

Mr Miller later argued that the government “set them up to fail” by providing only a partial $344,802 advance on a $4.787m rental payment to finance the renovations.

The main potential tenant was the Immigration Department, which was expected to lease about 98,000 square feet at the former Robin Hood store. The Registrar General’s Department, Public Parks and Beaches Authority and Parliamentary Registration Department were also expected to move there.

Those leases were among the contracts K Peter Turnquest, deputy prime minister under the Minnis administration, identified as “handcuffing” the government’s financial plans.

During the 2018 mid-year Budget debate, he cited the Summerwinds matter as one of two cases in which the government owed between $13m and $14m for property leases with “no exit clauses”, even though “not one single government worker has ever set foot in the building”.

Mr Miller, however, described the leases as “a win-win” for all parties, saying the rental rate was 45 to 55 per cent lower than what the government typically paid.