The Tribune

By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

NEARLY one year after the Free National Movement first toured the Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute in North Andros, FNM Leader Dr Hubert Minnis, who returned to the site with a delegation yesterday, said “not one thing has changed”.

Speaking with The Tribune from Andros, Dr Minnis said the House of Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) would immediately investigate what has happened to “all the money the government claims they spent on the project.”

Dr Minnis also demanded a fiscal audit of BAMSI and renewed concerns over the lack of transparency with the institute.

“The PLP has not done anything. This place is in the same state it was in when we were here earlier this year,” Dr Minnis said.

“They have a huge cafeteria with three different dining rooms, it is far bigger than the College of the Bahamas which has thousands of students and BAMSI only has 50 students. That makes no sense to me.

“The building that was burned down is in the exact same state, nothing has been done. The building has not been worked on. They pushed some debris to the side but besides that, there has been no progress,” the Killarney MP added.

“The PLP has a lot of explaining to do, they will answer to the Public Accounts Committee. The people must know what has happened to the money. We are demanding transparency and accountability.”

In March, Dr Minnis led an FNM delegation to tour the BAMSI campus but at one point was turned away from the site by security officers who claimed “the farm was closed”.

In January, a BAMSI dormitory was set on fire and completely destroyed.

The next month, controversy broke out when Works Minister Philip Davis revealed that the dormitory constructed by contractor Audley Hanna of Paradigm Construction was never insured.

He had previously said in the House of Assembly that at the time of the fire, the contractor’s all-risk insurance policy had lapsed due to non-payment.

In July, Mr Davis said the destroyed dormitory would not be repaired until all other BAMSI buildings have been completed.

The Christie administration allocated $21m for this fiscal year to BAMSI, according to the government’s 2015/2016 budget draft estimates.

Of this amount, $14m has been set aside for capital development while the Ministry of Agriculture has set aside $7m in recurrent expenditure for the institution.

In view of contradictory statements by government officials, questions have been raised in the past about how much money has already been spent on BAMSI.

Last October, Prime Minister Perry Christie said no more than $23m had been spent on the project, contradicting an earlier statement Agriculture Minister V Alfred Gray made in September 2014 that the government doled out $50m on BAMSI.

Mr Davis has said it will cost $5.5m to rebuild the destroyed BAMSI dorm, which will be reconfigured from single occupancy to double.

Ft Charlotte MP Dr Andre Rollins and Bamboo Town MP Renward Wells, who both joined the FNM earlier this month, accompanied Dr Minnis on his tour of BAMSI.

Both men were previously members of the governing Progressive Liberal Party. Dr Rollins quit the PLP in June and served as an independent MP for a short time, while Mr Wells left the party in early November.