The Tribune

PRIME MINISTER Perry Christie declared on the eve of the July 17th House meeting that he could not wait to take the floor that day to clear up the controversy of stem cell research and his and his party’s relationship with fashion designer Peter Nygard.

A confused and concerned country was also waiting for an explanation, but July 17 came and went. As the evening wore on, Mr Christie said it was getting late and so postponed his explanation to the next session. However, when that session came there was still no explanation, but confusion in the House when Opposition leader Dr Hubert Minnis took to the floor to defend his member — St Anne’s MP Hubert Chipman — who had earlier been stopped by the Speaker and asked to withdraw a statement to the effect that it appeared that the government was corrupt. Mr Chipman was asked to withdraw or substantiate. Dr Minnis rose to his defence maintaining that Mr Chipman had no reason to withdraw anything.

Although Mr Chipman finally withdrew his comment, Dr Minnis refused. He was holding an affidavit in his hand. When Dr Minnis said he had a sworn affidavit, Mr Christie’s reaction was one of surprise. “An affidavit?” he queried.

It was obvious by the quizzical look on Mr Christie’s face that he was not aware that an affidavit even existed — an affidavit that is on file in the magistrate’s court in a case brought by Mr Nygard against his neighbour Louis Bacon and others. The contents of the affidavit have never been revealed in the House. An educated guess suggests that this is probably what is behind the urge to seal the lips of the Opposition leader — finally adjourning the House to this morning. However, it is doubtful that the cooling off period will silence Dr Minnis. In an earlier editorial, we not only published the relevant paragraph of the affidavit sworn by Mr Nygard, but also gave the name of the case, which was before the court last year, and the page on which the following paragraph can be found:

“In addition,” said Mr Nygard in the affidavit, “I am one of the major backers of opposition leader Perry Christie and his PLP party. An election is expected to be held soon. Louis Bacon is a major financial donor to the present FNM government. I believe Mr Bacon wishes to discredit the PLP party by arranging false charges against me since I am a major PLP financial contributor who is associated by the public with the PLP.”

Up to this point, the PLP were in denial about the Nygard connection and so the affidavit has probably come as an unexpected embarrassment.

Of course, over the weeks — with no reasonable explanation coming from Mr Christie — these revelations have gained traction. Bahamians are arriving at their own conclusions. It is being said that Mr Chipman was holding the “smoking gun” and should have pressed on. Montagu MP Richard Lightbourn told the House that it is speculated that Mr Nygard was expecting certain approvals in return from the government.

With no word from Mr Christie, many Bahamians have become even more concerned about the sinister meaning behind Mr Nygard’s words that he – Peter Nygard –has “taken the Bahamas back”. Even persons abroad have caught the fever, and are sniggering at the nonsense. An e-mail to us from Toronto started with the words– “Congratulations! I hear Peter Nygard is your new prime minister!” What followed is best left unsaid.

The rumour now is that in fact government has already approved Mr Nygard’s request for Crown land, which the previous government had ordered him to restore to the three-acre size that he had purchased. Over the years, he has claimed that the land has doubled in size through years of accretion. It’s this extra three acres that he wants government to recognise as his. The original request was that it was to be granted to him as the headquarters of the world’s best stem cell research centre. It was to be an investment of about $50 million.

Tomorrow, Bahamians will expect Mr Christie to answer this question: Has Peter Nygard in fact already been granted the extra piece of Crown land that he claims nature helped him acquire free of charge? If so what are the terms and conditions of that acquisition?

Of course, most people have established the relationship between the PLP government and Peter Nygard and recently Mr Christie clarified his own friendship when he felt free to call his old friend, Peter, to ask for help in the medical care of one of the Bahamas’ icons.

Recently, Wendall Jones celebrated the Bahamas’ 40th independence anniversary with a function recognising 40 outstanding citizens.

Mr Christie was the main speaker. Among those being honoured was Peter Nygard for his major contribution to sports. No one can deny that Mr Nygard has been very generous to our sportsmen. Mr Christie, himself an athlete in his youth, recalled how athletes of his day suffered because they didn’t have sponsors, so it was important that someone who put millions into promoting regatta racing and other sports must be recognised. We agree.

Mr Christie then went on to talk about how his own interest in stem cell research was aroused. According to Mr Christie, it was Mr Nygard who, about two years ago, through doing research for his dying mother, came to him with the idea. Earlier on in a session with the press, however, it was Mr Nygard who had said that it was Mr Christie who had come to him first with the idea to promote the Bahamas as a medical centre for stem cell research. But, this is a minor detail. Mr Nygard often seems to contradict himself as when he told The Tribune that it was “silly” to think that he would ever create a stem cell centre in his “own backyard”.

What he did not know was that at the time that he made that remark we had on our desk the record of a June meeting that Mr Nygard had last year with Bahamas Investment Authority, headed by Sir Baltron Bethel. At that meeting, Mr Nygard said he planned to invest about $50 million to restore Nygard Cay after a fire and build a Medical Spa (in his “own back yard”) specialising in stem cell research.

However, to get back to Mr Christie’s speech at the recent Jones function. The Prime Minister told how “in the last 48 hours” he had made “an intervention for a friend who is critically ill and was told by members of his family that they were trying to get Mr Nygard to meet the cost of transporting him to the United States of America into a specialist centre and I am talking about an iconic figure in the Bahamas. I picked up the telephone and called him. I said: “Peter, are you in this?’ He said ‘my daughter, Bianca was asking me to do so’. I told him regardless to what people say, whatever their motives are this person has given so much in leadership for 55 years to the culture of the country that as PM I am prepared to go to my government – we will support him for that very reason– but I did not have the means to do so today — it’s a holiday. And he did it.”

That establishes that friendship — obviously the time will come when there has to be reciprocity.

When that day comes for a choice to be made between the interests of the Bahamian people and Mr Nygard to whom will you feel most indebted, Mr Christie?