The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

PRIME Minister Perry Christie should discipline Deputy Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis for seemingly “ignoring” his reported position on embattled Ministry of Works Parliamentary Secretary Renward Wells, FNM Leader Dr Hubert Minnis said yesterday.

His statement follows published reports that claimed that Mr Christie asked Mr Wells to resign for signing a more than $600m letter of intent for a waste-to-energy plant. However, this week Mr Davis told reporters that before anything happens, he would seek an explanation from Mr Wells to determine whether he did anything wrong.

“When the prime minister has given an order and the deputy prime minister is ignoring the order and looking at it from a different angle, who is in charge?” Dr Minnis asked.

“If the prime minister is in charge and the deputy prime minister is ignoring the order, then the prime minister has the right to fire the deputy prime minister and Mr Wells. If you, as leader, are captain of the ship and you give an order and he refuses to carry out an order, you are duty bound to remove him from that position and replace him with someone else. Otherwise, he’s in charge.

“The prime minister needs to discipline the deputy, or if the deputy is in charge, the deputy needs to discipline the prime minister.”

No official statements have been made by Mr Christie on the issue. However, it was reported by The Nassau Guardian that Mr Christie had asked Mr Wells to resign.

In view of the apparent contradiction in the statements of Mr Christie and Mr Davis, Dr Minnis renewed his much criticised call for the Christie administration to call an early general election.

“Call an election so the opposition under the leadership of Dr Minnis, could fire both the PM, the DPM and their entire Cabinet, at which time we would have a true and vibrant government,” Dr Minnis said.

Commenting on the issue yesterday, FNM Deputy Chairman Dr Duane Sands said the confusion “is typical of the Christie Cabinet as one where everybody is in charge.

“The Westminster protocol,” said Dr Sands, “speaks to collective responsibility and one voice so when members of Cabinet speak, particularly on official business, they were speaking for the Cabinet of the Bahamas. For two members, number one and two, to have diametrically opposed points of view speaks to an issue of who is in charge, who is running the government. If the DPM would change a position taken by the prime minister, that’s an issue that deserves to be explained.”

The crux of the controversy is that with senior government officials denying that they gave Mr Wells, a junior, instructions to sign a letter of intent with Stellar Waste to Energy Bahamas Limited (SWTEB), Mr Wells breached Westminster protocols by signing the letter.

Dr Sands added his voice to the growing chorus calling for the government to clarify whether Mr Wells was acting on the authority of a superior.

“We have an issue where there is a signature linking the Bahamian government and Bahamian people to a multimillion dollar contract,” he said. “If we just look at that and take it at face value, there is an intrinsic problem with a parliamentary secretary executing a document for which he had no authority. I think Bahamians need to know whether he was instructed, authorised, advised or supported in that action.

“I think it goes even deeper in this. What would’ve forced someone who is an intelligent Bahamian to sign this document? Was he complicit with somebody else? This whole thing stinks. We are owed a formal explanation from start to finish, and not from the foreign investor who clearly has been duped in this.”

Dr Sands said “investor confidence” in the Bahamas could be shaken by issues like this. “As a Bahamian I am flabbergasted and embarrassed,” he said. “Is this is circus or is this a country?”