The Tribune

By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Deputy Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

TRANSPORT Minister Renward Wells fiercely defended the Minnis administration's decision to lease the Town Centre Mall to house the General Post Office yesterday, insisting the government hid no element of the deal.

And despite calls for the lease agreement to be tabled at Parliament, Mr Wells did not commit to this, saying it was a discussion that needed to be had at another level.

He also refused to set the record straight on whether former Immigration Minister Brent Symonette had been involved in any of the discussions surrounding the deal.

This has been a point of contention for many after the St Anne's MP, who is part owner of the mall, previously revealed that Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis called him to personally negotiate the deal last year.

However, Mr Symonette and government officials have also said he was not a part of Cabinet talks surrounding government renting the mall.

Nonetheless, Mr Wells said he doesn't think the controversy surrounding the post office relocation will hurt the Minnis administration's public image.

"Everything that was spoken to in the press was spoken to in the House of Assembly," the minister said yesterday as he rejected criticisms about the situation. "The resolution was put forward, transparency was given to the Bahamian people, it was debated, reports were laid, people had their say and there was a vote and we moved.

"But yet still we have come back in this era to try to adjudicate something that was already adjudicated in the high court of Parliament.

"…Ain't nobody was ducking under no rock [or] hiding nothing. It was there for all the Bahamian people to see, for people to ask questions, for the opposition to debate, for them to lay documents and we spoke to the issue and so the fact of the matter is and so my statement is going to end there. What could be more transparent?"

He also said: "The process has been transparent and I don't see any issue as to why we're back at adjudicating the process. As I said from the beginning we were transparent and we still are."

While he would not speak to the engineer's report done on the Phil's Food Services building at Gladstone Road, the Bamboo Town MP said the government had good reason not to go with that location.

Earlier this month, The Tribune reported that the Minnis administration's rationale in a Parliament resolution last year for abandoning the Phil's building as the site of the General Post Office was not supported by the assessment of independent engineers contracted to evaluate the building.

The Tribune asked Mr Wells yesterday if the building had already been gutted of electrical wiring when the report was done. He did not answer the question.

"I am going to say this: we said that it was about structural and other technical issues. I spoke to all the technical issues. The second-floor mezzanine that was inside the Phil's building [was] completely gone. [There was] no more second floor. [It was] completely gone because of structural issues. [The] electrical system gutted, this isn't something that we hid we spoke to this in the House of Assembly - ain't nothing new there."

Mr Wells said he stood by the government's decision and was confident it has been handled the right way. "Listen no one disagrees that the post office is in the right place," he said when asked if this could be a stumbling block for the government.

"The place where it is, is the right place. As a matter of fact, the opposition thought that the centre where it is being so right they decided that they didn't want to go there because of whatever reasons, so where they went?

"Did they go to the west end of the island or the east end of the island?

"No, they went right cross the road in Independence Shopping Centre. So, everybody agrees it's the right place. Everybody agrees it is the right spot on the island. Everybody agrees that it is the right place according to their own reports and so at the end of the day what are we debating? Tit-for-tat, butter for fat; you kill my dog, I kill your cat?

"Come on let's be serious about statecraft and about what is required."

As for the lease agreement, Mr Wells said it was signed and there is nothing else about it that hasn't already been said. He said the government had previously said it was paying $12 per square foot for 56,000 square feet. Additionally, the lease leaves room for government to rent up to 75,000 square foot if need be.