The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Government was yesterday urged to rapidly change the public perception that “too many backroom deals are going on”, a leading businessman suggesting this was another reason why economic growth rates were stagnating.

Dionisio D’Aguilar, Superwash’s president, told Tribune Business that the flurry of recent concerns over government contract awards and procurement processes were contributing to an environment in which the private sector was reluctant to invest.

And, warning that the public mood was also souring over the issue, Mr D’Aguilar said the Government had to “change that dynamic” - especially as the impression is growing that Prime Minister Perry Christie was losing control.

“I think there’s a general shift in the mood of the people that there’s a lot of funny business going on in government,” the former Bahamas Chamber of Commerce president told Tribune Business.

“Whether it’s true or not, there’s a perception this is on the rise, there’s a lot of non-transparency and there’s a lot of backroom deals going on.”

Mr D’Aguilar said these concerns centred on the New Providence landfill through both the management/recycled products manufacturing contract handed to Renew Bahamas, and the controversial Letter of Intent (LOI) signed for Stellar Energy’s proposed $600 million waste-to-energy plant.

He also referenced the equipment contracts for the Princess Margaret Hospital’s Critical Care Block, and the ongoing failure to get this facility opened and deliver quality, affordable healthcare to the Bahamian people.

While agreeing that there was no evidence to suggest ministers and officials had behaved improperly in any of these cases, Mr D’Aguilar said it was the public’s perception that really counted.

“We’re at that moment in the Christie administration’s life cycle where people think there are a lot of backroom deals going on,” he reiterated.

“You hear stories about the dump, you hear these stories over the hospital. You have a lot of backroom similarities about these deals, and whether true or not they [the Government] have to change that dynamic.

“Any time a government is unwilling to make a process transparent, you immediately wonder why. Maybe it’s the same with any government, but there seems to be a lot of them,” Mr D’Aguilar added.

“There’s definitely a change in the mood in the marketplace; that there’s a lot of backroom deals going on, and Christie is losing control of his group.

“People are not excited about investing in this economy, and they have to change that dynamic, too.”

Further fuelling the general uncertainty in the Bahamas was the Government’s stumbling effort to legalise, then tax and regulate, web shop gaming.

Describing this as a “no win situation”, Mr D’Aguilar said he was unable to see how the Government’s plans could be “resolved” in the face of commercial banking industry opposition to accepting deposits from even a legalised web shop industry.

“They may go ahead and do it, but how it’s going to work is anybody’s guess,” he told Tribune Business. “The banks are not willing to accept the money period, so they’ve [the Government] run into another stumbling block on how to deal with it.”

Exacerbating this further is the fate of the taxes the Government expects to earn from a legalised web shop industry, Mr D’Aguilar questioning whether this, too, was “all up in the air” in the face of commercial bank resistance.

And reforms vital to the Bahamian casino gaming industry’s expansion and competitiveness had been brought “to a screeching halt” after this had been confused, and bound up, with web shop gaming.

As a result, Mr D’Aguilar said the likes of Atlantis and Baha Mar had been “stuck with this prehistoric law” they are currently unable to change.

While there was “no doubt” that Prime Minister Christie was working hard on behalf of the Bahamian people, Mr D’Aguilar said the issues confronting the Government were simply “overwhelming”.

He added that the Bahamas’ centralised decision-making processes, where Cabinet took all the important decisions, were simply ill-equipped to cope with the demands being imposed on this country.

“It’s where it’s grinding to a halt,” Mr D’Aguilar told Tribune Business. “Maybe Renward Wells did overstep his boundaries a little [on the waste LOI], and he should have got the Minister on board, but you can’t run a corporation the size of the Bahamas through a meeting of 20 people once a week. And it has to be open and transparent.

“There’s so many outstanding issues that need to be addressed. They [Cabinet] can probably deal with one or two at a time, when there are literally 100 hundred on the agenda.”