The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

FORMER Deputy Prime Minister Frank Watson yesterday called Brent Symonette’s admission over the circumstances that led to the lease of Town Centre Mall “regrettable”.

However, the senior FNM member told The Tribune he believed the government made the right choice, adding he suspected public ire over the matter went deeper than the lease agreement.

“The whole issue has become a football between the two political parties,” Mr Watson said. “On the face of it, I think they did the right thing, made the right steps. I can’t think of a better place or better building, everything ought to be what is in the best interest of the country.

“You’re always going to have some people with money that will have a stake but do we have the public suffer because we don’t want to make the decision?”

He also said: “The PLP had in mind that building, the FNM came and continued the negotiation. I just don’t think that building in itself is the cause of all this hoorah in the public. I think it’s more stuff underpinning this adding fuel to the fire.

“I thought Symonette could have handled himself a little better when he talked, with himself, I think he created some of the stuff that’s floating up to the top.

“But I don’t have a problem (with the lease).”

Amid calls from the official opposition for a vote of no confidence in Parliament over the issue, one sitting Cabinet minister said the revelation that Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis called Mr Symonette to negotiate the lease of his building was “nothing new”.

The Cabinet minister, who spoke on condition of anonymity, argued there was no way the matter could have been discussed in a Cabinet session - excluding Mr Symonette - without first asking the senior FNM if he would accept the offer.

“Every parliamentary secretary knows this,” said the minister yesterday.

“People are trying to make a political problem about something that was legal. The FNM went through the process, now if you don’t like the process then you can agitate for change."

The Cabinet minister continued: “Some are being very sanctimonious, and hypocritical. If the Bahamian people in their wisdom have arrived at a state and a place where they believe no politician should have no contract with no government entity, then let’s change it. But these things have happened and do happen.”

The resolution to rent the mall stated: “…One of the beneficial of owners of the Town Centre Mall is a serving Cabinet minister who did not take part in the discussion leading to the decision to accept the offer to lease portions of the building.”

The Cabinet minister insisted the government followed the legal and appropriate process by bringing a resolution to Parliament to allow for full debate, and with Mr Symonette fully disclosing his interests.

However, Mr Symonette’s revelation on a local talk show of his phone call with Dr Minnis to discuss the terms of the lease of Town Centre Mall has given new legs to claims of conflict of interest that have haunted the government’s engagement of companies with ties to his family or himself.

Attorney Wayne Munroe yesterday called for Dr Minnis and Mr Symonette to be questioned by police over the circumstances that preceded the government's decision to table the resolution in the House of Assembly.

The Office of the Prime Minister has called the allegations Dr Minnis would personally and unilaterally negotiate the lease agreement “nonsensical”, but refused to confirm the date of that phone call as a matter of confidentiality.

Mr Symonette, who has a 50 percent stake in the property and resigned from Cabinet last week, said he discussed “the whole question of conflict of interest” during that call, and was informed of the decision to table a resolution in Parliament.

When the resolution was tabled in October last year, the government's previous post office partner revealed he had been left exposed to a near $4m loss.

Scott Godet had agreed to a public-private partnership (PPP) with the former Christie administration to construct a new main post office at the Independence Drive Shopping Plaza, but the Minnis administration ultimately decided to relocate the main facility on the opposite side of the roundabout at the Town Centre Mall.

Ahead of the 2017 general election, Mr Symonette suggested the mall would have been a more cost-effective option than the plaza.

In a Guardian Business article, printed April 12, 2017, Mr Symonette said: “It would be interesting to compare dollar for dollar what they are giving.

“I would imagine, you are going to find, they are going to spend more on renovating the building than it would have cost them to go into the Town Centre Mall,” Mr Symonette was quoted in the article.

“There would have been more parking. It would have been ready a lot earlier. It probably would have been more cost effective.”

According to the Guardian Business article, Mr Symonette argued that more details concerning the PPP would have been disclosed if there was an enacted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

In another Guardian interview, printed in October last year, Mr Symonette said: “I was not part of the general discussion, so I do not know what the general plans are for the post office as we speak, the current general plans.

“I am aware of what the PLP proposal was,” Mr Symonette was quoted in the article, “because I was part of that regiment where they drew extensive plans for Town Centre Mall.”

The resolution to lease the Town Centre Mall was passed on October 24, 2018 with the support of 22 MPs. Free National Movement MPs Frederick McAlpine, Vaughn Miller, Reece Chipman, and Travis Robinson voted against the resolution alongside the four opposition members.

Eight MPs were absent during the vote, and Mr Symonette abstained.

Yesterday, Mr Robinson said he had “no comment” but some of his colleagues said they felt their stance had been vindicated.

“It proves we were on the right side of history,” Mr Miller said, “we did the right thing. My position on record was that I would only support it if (Mr Symonette) resigned and joined the back bench with us. Certainly it gives you the feeling of vindication. But it’s minuscule, it’s just a matter of doing the right thing, what I knew to be right and to not be compromised with that.

“There is somethings that’s bigger than a party. It has to be for the national good for the country and setting the right examples so that others who succeed us would have some examples to go by, to see that some stood for what was right."

Mr Miller said he hoped Dr Minnis addresses the matter as soon as possible as the revelations were “astonishing, unbelievable”.

For his part, Mr Chipman said he hoped his administration could regroup and recommit to altruistic principles of good governance in the spirit of the country’s independence.

“It is never vindication when you are a part of a team,” Mr Chipman said, “where a pattern of inconsistencies of the interpretation of communication seems to overshadow intended good works.”

Mr Chipman continued: “I can only hope and pray that for the sake of my administration, we regroup and recommit to where meritocracy, pragmatism and honesty become the order of the day, for the betterment of our people and our country.”

For his part, Mr McAlpine said: “We’ve been proclaiming this from day one. We’ve been proven to be correct, without us having to say anything there is a self-admission by the former minister himself.

“I think what’s more important is this,” Mr McAlpine said, “whether or not that call to the former minister came prior to a Cabinet meeting, which would then mean the decision was made without a Cabinet decision and appears as if it was a one-man decision.

“That’s not good for democracy in the Commonwealth of the Bahamas.”