The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

FREE National Movement Chairman Michael Pintard yesterday maintained that the conflict of interest claims against the party’s leader Dr Hubert Minnis were “nothing new.”

Mr Pintard declined to comment on published reports that the lease agreement with the Public Hospitals Authority and a company linked to Dr Minnis had continued during his tenure as minister of health under the previous Ingraham administration.

However, he insisted that Dr Minnis declared the connection when he was first elected in 2007 and that the agreement was known to the current and past administrations.

In an interview with The Tribune yesterday, Mr Pintard instead pointed out that Minister of State for Legal Affairs Damian Gomez’s removal from Baha Mar legal proceedings was a more “telling” issue.

According to published reports, Prime Minister Perry Christie removed Mr Gomez from the government’s legal team in the Baha Mar matter in a bid to avoid any suspicion that the government was colluding with China State Construction America or the China Import Export Bank.

Mr Pintard pointed out that it was Mr Gomez who recused himself from the matter.

“We believe it is he (Mr Gomez) that advised the prime minister that this was the prudent thing to do, rather than the other way around. If the prime minister had arrived at that conclusion relative to Gomez then he would have certainly got to the conclusion that Mrs Maynard-Gibson’s service would be inappropriate given the links she has alluded to, and those that she has not yet acknowledged.”

Mr Pintard said the decision to remove Mr Gomez from the legal team was a small step in the right direction, adding that it was time for the government to reposition itself as part of the solution to getting the stalled project completed.

Dr Minnis has called for Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson to resign for what he said is a conflict of interest regarding Baha Mar.

Mrs Maynard-Gibson, who has served as lead negotiator for the government in the Baha Mar discussions, revealed last Monday that her husband owns a jewellery store chain that has leases in Baha Mar. Days earlier she said it was her two daughters, 28 and 30, who had been granted leases to operate stores at the property.

Mrs Maynard-Gibson has gone to China twice as head of a government delegation to mediate talks with Baha Mar, project financier the Export-Import Bank of China and general contractor China Construction America (CCA) Bahamas.

Baha Mar filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a US court on June 29. However, all sides have been engaged in talks to hopefully come to an out of court agreement to get the resort finished and opened. PLP Chairman Bradley Roberts last week questioned whether Dr Minnis benefited financially from the PHA entering into a lease agreement involving the use of the Stat Care building – in which Dr Minnis had invested.

In the statement, Mr Roberts said Dr Minnis must confirm or deny this and state whether he benefited financially from the arrangement.

Last week, Dr Minnis accused Mr Roberts of attempting to malign his character with false accusations of conflict of interest.

“Bradley Roberts is trying to malign my character and my honour and my integrity. He is a relic of the past and remains in the past. I am thinking forward about how we can build a better Bahamas,” Dr Minnis said last week.

“He can rest assured that I am not a member of the ‘all for me, baby’ crew. The contract with Stat Care, which I have shares in, was signed with the PLP in 2005. I did not enter politics until 2007. This entire thing is a deflection from what is happening with the attorney general.”

The Killarney MP could not be reached for comment yesterday.