The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Ministry of Health is still assessing what to do with some $70m worth of “dubious” contracts the Christie administration left in place, Health Minister Dr Duane Sands said yesterday.

“We have met with the architects, some of the contractors, etc (to discuss the contracts),” he said.

“I think it’s important to recognise it’s not that we are trying to be obstructive, we need guidance about how to proceed.”

The Minnis administration has resisted many contracts executed by its predecessor, questioning their “burdensome” legal implications and value.

“So many of these things were written in such a way that in some instances there were no ‘out’ clauses,” Dr Sands said.

Last month, Supreme Court Justice Cheryl Grant-Bethel ruled in favour of former Tall Pines MP Leslie Miller, finding the previous administration’s lease of his shopping plaza remains “valid and binding”. Mr Miller is seeking damages of more than $66m. The Office of the Attorney General is appealing the ruling.

So far, the government has not been taken to the courts over healthcare contracts put in place but Dr Sands bemoaned the tough position the government is in. 

“There was down payments paid to multiple contractors but no funding at all was identified for this remaining $70m,” he said.

“It is a bridge to nowhere.

“Was this legislative malpractice? It’s all well and good to be progressive in your view of what you would like to do for your country, but it is another thing to put a noose around the neck of the people of the Bahamas, particularly when you sign contracts on May 9 and April 29. What were you hoping to accomplish? To win an election or were you genuinely attempting to fix a stubborn problem that you didn’t address in the previous 4.9 years of your term?”

To achieve national health insurance, the Christie administration initiated capital work improvements to many clinics and healthcare centres around the country.

However, the Ministry of Health’s assessment teams lambasted the quality of some of the work performed between 2015 and 2018, according to a report of the capital projects seen by The Tribune.

Analysts found work at the Elizabeth Estates Clinic and Fleming Street Clinic to be substandard, for instance, and found the quality of work at the South Beach Health Centre “internally poor.” In some cases contracted work was not done. With respect to a clinic in Acklins, they said residents found the clinic too far away from their community.

Former Grand Bahama Minister Dr Michael Darville defended his administration’s contracts yesterday, calling Dr Sands a “crybaby.” “All of the contracts executed by the Ministry of Health and the Public Hospitals Authority were well thought out contracts that went through the proper legal parameters with a tender process and we felt that was the direction we wanted to take healthcare in at the time,” he said.

“We make no apologies because we did what we had to do. The baton was passed on to them in the last election. When the FNM entered contracts, we honoured those contracts and then moved forward with our plans. This group is almost finished their term, why they still blaming the PLP?”