The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

FOLLOWING reports that people have been charged in several countries for allegedly accepting bribes from the French power and transportation firm Alstom, DNA leader Branville McCartney accused the government of dragging its feet in naming the Bahamian official accused of taking a bribe from the company more than a decade ago.

The Tribune was assured yesterday by a government official that the matter is still being dealt with.

The official also emphasised the need not to prejudice ongoing investigations by making public statements about a matter that will eventually have to be dealt with in court.

The investigations come amid allegations that Alstom admitted paying an unnamed Bahamian, called ’Official 8’, via intermediaries to ensure it won the contract to supply BEC with a slow speed diesel generator. It is meant to have taken place sometime between 1999 and 2001. Following charges against the firm brought by the US Justice Department, Alstom has already pleaded guilty to charges and agreed to pay more than $770 million after paying more than $75 million to secure $4 billion in projects worldwide.

Yesterday, Mr McCartney said: “It reminds me of being in the House of Assembly several years ago when the former prime minister indicated he would expose the previous government for corruption. Then someone in the PLP said ‘If you do that, I know where the FNM’s skeletons are.’ So it’s this kind of, ‘If you tell on me, I will tell on you’ kind of thing. That’s why we are the way we are as a country today. One can’t talk on the next because we get things on both parties. I don’t think the PLP is going to talk on the FNM because they are two sides of the same coin.”

According to reports, officials in the USA and Europe have been charged after Alstom signed a plea bargain.

Attorney General Allyson Maynard Gibson has already confirmed that her office has requested information related to the case.

However, The Tribune understands that the matter has not yet been turned over to the police for investigation.