The Tribune

By TANEKA THOMPSON

Tribune News Editor

tmthompson@tribunemedia.net

FORMER Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham called for public hearings to take place into the “secretive” dealings of the Christie administration, such as value added tax (VAT) spending, saying the public would be “surprised” to see where the revenue has gone.

Mr Ingraham also accused the Progressive Liberal Party of having a “culture of begging” foreign investors for favours, while alleging that several members of the party have contracts with Baha Mar.

The former Free National Movement leader also described Prime Minister Perry Christie as an “ineffective” leader who has not delivered on his promises and lost the trust of the Bahamian people. He said the PLP is leading the country in the wrong direction.

He made the comments during a wide-ranging interview on the show “On the Record” with host Jerome Sawyer, which aired on Our TV last night.

When asked about the government’s performance, Mr Ingraham said of the Christie administration’s “secretive” nature: “I think the public needs to have a hearing of the things that happened so they can make some judgments about the future, to prevent these things from happening in the future.”

Later in the show he was asked about allegations of corruption that have dogged this administration.

The Tribune revealed last month that Education Minister Jerome Fitzgerald solicited lucrative contracts from Baha Mar developer Sarkis Izmirlian for his family’s businesses. Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson has admitted that her husband and two daughters own shops in the Baha Mar resort. Both Cabinet ministers served on the government’s negotiating team to get Baha Mar remobilised, a process in part that saw Mr Izmirlian’s control as the investor of the property removed.

When asked about these allegations, Mr Ingraham said he did not know if the public was significantly angered by these developments.

“Take Jerome Fitzgerald for instance, in many societies he would be driven out of office. Or Allyson Maynard.”

He added: “The PLP has a culture of begging investors for various things, it’s a culture. And when they are in office, people spring up who go around hitting up on others. That’s known. That’s a reality, that’s a fact. I don’t know the extent to which Christie can change that, I think that unlike what has happened in the past, stronger efforts have to be taken and made towards ridding our country of this kind of thing.

“ . . . We have standards in the FNM. There are no standards in the PLP. You can’t get the prime minister to comment on it . . . many of them have contracts down at Sarkis Izmirlian. If I’m begging you and say ‘Man give this contract to my friend over here, give this contract to my son, give this contract to my brother, etc,’ I can’t stand up to you.

“There is no way Allyson Maynard could have gotten four shops in Baha Mar if she was not the attorney general and minister in the government. They got it because of connection . . .”

While on the campaign trail, Mr Ingraham has criticised the government for collecting over $1bn in VAT revenue since 2015, while the country’s debt continues to rise.

He continued his assault on this practice yesterday.

“They’ve been squandering your money, that’s the reality,” he told the show’s host.

“There needs to be an investigation into where the money gone. You’d be surprised to know where the money gone,” he said.

When asked what could have happened to the VAT revenue, he said: “Vote FNM next week, you’ll find out. You’ll never find out while the PLP is in office.”

And on Mr Christie, his former law partner, Mr Ingraham said he is not good for the country.

“I think Christie is good for the PLP but he’s bad for the Bahamas,” he said. “I think he has been an ineffective leader, I think he has been a promiser, not a deliverer, and I think the population of the Bahamas believes he has not levelled with them, he has not shot straight with them and they lost confidence in him and they don’t trust him anymore.”

Minnis

Mr Ingraham was also asked about his relationship with Dr Hubert Minnis, the man who assumed the reins of the FNM after he resigned in 2012, following an election loss.

He said Dr Minnis was his choice to replace him in 2012 and described the Killarney incumbent as a longtime friend.

He said he disagreed with the decision of the rebel seven MPs who ousted Dr Minnis as leader of the Official Opposition last December.

“That was inappropriate,” Mr Ingraham said of the move. “A political party determines its leader, not the members of the House. The members of the House can constitutionally select a leader but if you are a member of a party you ought to be (guided) by what the party has decided and the party decided that Minnis was its leader.

“The extent to which they had a difficulty in supporting Minnis, they ought to have settled it in the party. If they couldn’t settle it in the party, they could have taken their Georgie bundle and leave, but they had no right to remove Minnis as leader of the (Official) Opposition. The FNM is the Official Opposition of the Bahamas and the FNM chose Minnis as its leader.”

He said it was a “wrong” decision that he had previously cautioned the group against making, adding that the move in December caught him by surprise.

And while Dr Minnis has endured criticism and accusations of being a “weak,” unskilled leader, Mr Ingraham defended him as a skilled businessman.

“Minnis is very successful business wise, far more than Christie and I have ever been. He is very focused and very strong . . . ten times as strong as Christie is.”

He also said: “My era is over. I’m happy for the era I had and I wish he could have an era like mine, or better than mine . . . I have no regrets about my era. I’m very proud of what I did.”