The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Deputy Chief Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

LABOUR Minister Shane Gibson yesterday denied that the select committee established to probe the sale of the Bahamas Telecommunications Company Ltd was an election tactic as he insisted that the Progressive Liberal Party led government was only concerned with ensuring that the “chips fall where they may.”

Asked to explain the reasoning behind the government’s decision to launch the committee just months ahead of the 2017 election, Mr Gibson, who is also chairman of the committee, denied that there was anything curious about this, but maintained that it was simply a matter of scheduling on government’s agenda in the House of Assembly.

He also said he was “absolutely” sure the committee’s work would be completed ahead of the election.

The five-person panel, with the authority to investigate, examine and inquire into the circumstances and facts relating to the privatisation of the company, has yet to meet, Mr Gibson confirmed. However, he said it was his intention to call the first hearing either this week or next week.

Mr Gibson added that he had no expectations regarding what the probe would find, adding that he was very “objective” with the process.

Mr Gibson moved a resolution in Parliament last month to form the committee, but there had been calls for it from as early as 2014. That year, then PLP MP Renward Wells called for the formation of the committee, saying the details of the sale were “egregious.”

“(Do) we need a reason to do that?” Mr Gibson responded when The Tribune asked why the committee was not established sooner.

“Don’t forget now the initial person who asked for the select committee is (the) Bamboo Town MP. Bamboo Town jumped ship and then went over to the FNM and so after he went we had to reorganise and that’s when they asked me to move for the select committee which I did.”

He continued: “We have an agenda that we go by for Parliament.”

Asked specifically about the findings being used by the government for its elections campaign, Mr Gibson said: “If it wasn’t that it would be something else. Whenever you do it, it would be criticism. So criticism wouldn’t stop. So you accept that it is what it is and everything we do now they are going to say it’s politics. So it is what it is.

“All we want is for the chips to fall where they may. I don’t understand. Why would the issue be (when we decided to do it) when the issue should be did something really happen, that should be the real issue. What difference does it make when we expose it?”

In November, while addressing his colleagues in the House of Assembly, Mr Gibson suggested that the previous Ingraham administration gave away BTC in 2011.

He was also adamant that some inconsistency might exist between the cost at which the then Free National Movement government sold BTC and what its parent company CWC actually paid for it. BTC was sold to CWC for $210m, but Mr Gibson highlighted that in CWC’s audited financial statement, the company said it purchased the company at a cost of $204m.

FNM Leader Dr Hubert Minnis has said the formation of the select committee is nothing more than a “distraction” from the country’s real issues.

In an interview with The Tribune last month, Dr Minnis said the government is using this probe to divert the public’s attention away from a proposed $2.1 billion agri-fisheries venture with Chinese investors.