The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

A FORENSIC audit of the Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute has criticised the “ridiculously favourable” contracts senior administrators received weeks ahead of the 2017 general election, BAMSI chairman Tennyson Wells said yesterday.

Mr Wells also revealed auditors were obstructed in their work discovering documents they were seeking had been lost or destroyed.

These issues are among a number of matters highlighted in the audit of Pannell, Kerr & Foster International, Mr Wells said. He received a preliminary report in “October or November” and he expects to receive a final report in the next month.

“The audit discloses a lot of what can either be considered administrative errors or deliberately questionable activities,” he told The Tribune. “Either way it is not complimentary.

“Say you got a five-year contract,” he continued, “(former officials) gave contracts where people were making $50,000 to $80,000, were entitled to increases and gratuity each year and if the contract was not being renewed, the person would be entitled to an extra year salary without working for it. It’s ridiculous.

“A person making $80,000 at the start of the contract’s life would get a three to five percent increase every year so in five years he’d be up to a $100,000 salary. If he decides to leave after the contract period, then in addition to gratuity, he would’ve gotten an additional $100,000, the equivalent of a year in which he did no work.”

Mr Wells said such contracts were signed in April 2017. They never went into effect, however, because the Progressive Liberal Party was voted out of office the next month. He said between eight to ten people comprised the administrative team that would have benefited from the contracts. 

He claimed: “It was right at the end near the election but they never looked at the unethical and legal implications of what was done. The staff said they were directed by the (politicians) and were only carrying out instructions. They knew once the election happened and the FNM won, they wouldn’t get those contracts.”

Mr Wells declined to disclose many details about the auditors’ findings. However, he said auditors were hampered by an inability to access documents that went missing. 

“There was a lot of missing documentation that either was being deliberately destroyed or just couldn’t be found,” he said. “Auditors were trying to get the audit started from early 2017 after the government got in but for some reason they couldn’t get information because there was internal resistance, or such is my conclusion. When I came here, we’ve been trying to get the information that was either hidden or destroyed. They told me they wanted to spot check 900 cheques or so, for instance, but we only found 600.”

Mr Wells was appointed to his post in early 2018.

He said the audit has two dimensions. It examines matters strictly under the control of BAMSI administrators, such as the appointment of staff, ordinary expenses and the process of attracting students and hiring personnel. It also examines the building of BAMSI’s physical structure in North Andros. 

“I understand the buildings cost in excess of $50m,” Mr Wells said, “but BAMSI never dealt with that, that would’ve been the Ministry of Works. The final audit report we receive will be comprehensive and we’ll look at that.”

He said he expects the final report to address the male dormitory building that burned down in 2015. The building was not insured. 

Asked if the audit revealed criminal behaviour, Mr Wells said determining this will be left to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Mr Wells said the audit will cost taxpayers less than $100,000 based on what has been spent so far. Other audits under the Minnis administration have cost considerably more. Last year Bamboo Town MP Renward Wells, then minister of agriculture and marine resources, said the BAMSI audit would be completed before June 2018, however it was not released at that time.