The Tribune

• Dismisses claims over health travel visa deal

• Tourism re-open urgency meant no bidding

• Says opposition trying to ‘debunk’ system

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A Cabinet minister yesterday asserted that “no special favours” were involved in hiring a digital payments provider to handle the health travel via fees generated by tourism’s COVID-19 re-opening.

Dionisio D’Aguilar, minister of tourism and aviation, accused the Official Opposition of “trying to make hay where there is no hay” over the selection of Kanoo to collect and remit visa fee payments to the Government amid allegations that it was chosen due to political connections.

Conceding that the urgency to re-open the Bahamian tourism industry by November 1 resulted in the contract not being put out to competitive bid, Mr D’Aguilar said Kanoo was recommended by Think Simple, the software developer for the health travel visa website, as the two companies had worked together before. 

Kanoo’s principals include Keith Davies, the Bahamas International Securities Exchange’s (BISX) chief executive; Nicholas Rees as chairman; and its chief financial officer, Herbert Cash. Their identities have been in the public domain for some time, but also among the company’s directors is Dr Nigel Lewis, the Free National Movement’s (FNM) national campaign co-ordinator for the upcoming general election.

Tribune Business also last December disclosed that Dr Lewis is chairman of Public-Private Investments (PPIL) group, the entity that has received the Cabinet’s go-ahead to generate $1.5bn in revenues via a multi-million dollar proposal to revive and restore Nassau’s key heritage sites including three forts, the Queen’s Staircase (66 Steps) and Water Tower, and the Pompey Museum.

Mr D’Aguilar, though, dismissed Opposition claims of cronyism and favouritism involving Kanoo’s selection as the “payment bridge” between the health travel visa website and the Ministry of Tourism. “They are making hay where there is no hay,” he told this newspaper. “There’s no missing money and no special favours.

“Why pick Kanoo? It was the developer. We had five days to roll the website out. The Government decided we wanted all our visitors to have a health visa and rapid antigen test, and it was successful.” Mr D’Aguilar also reiterated that Kanoo receives a 1.5 percent fee per transaction which, based on the $9.8m in health travel fees collected to end-March 2021, would see it earn close to $150,000.

Pointing out that the 1.5 percent fee was mandated by the Ministry of Finance as the maximum to be paid to all digital payment services providers, the minister added: “It ain’t like we are getting rich out of this. The biggest fee is to the settling bank. They get three times’ that.

“We didn’t fight that. We could have got cheaper by going with Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), but the Bank of The Bahamas is owned by the Government. I think that the health visa has been a remarkable success in allowing us to open the tourism sector without an explosion of COVID-19.”

Accusing the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) of “trying to debunk it [the health travel visa] and tap into the frustrations of returning residents that have to pay the $40”, Mr D’Aguilar said the solution to this was for Bahamians to become fully vaccinated.

However, a rival digital payments provider, speaking on condition of anonymity, yesterday questioned the explanation provided by Mr D’Aguilar and the Government over how Kanoo was selected. Even if timelines meant competitive bidding could not be organised, they asked why other companies had not been integrated with the health travel visa website to provide the same service some seven months later.

“They didn’t ask anybody else, and nor did they share the details of what the requirements are,” the source said. “They simply went with Kanoo, and said do this for us. My concern is, even if the statement about being under the gun is correct, how is it seven to eight months later none of the other digital payment providers are integrated with the system.

“Kanoo has not provided a proprietary solution. If you want an e-commerce component added to your website, it’s a plug and play solution. You can do that with any decent website developer today. They’re trying to over-complicate this thing and it’s not.”

The Ministry of Tourism and Aviation, in its explanation, asserted that it had been left scrambling to develop a solution that met the Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 protocol requirements after the airlines said they were unable to screen the test results for passengers flying to The Bahamas - with one even warning that it would stop flying.

Left with a five to six-week timeframe to develop the health travel visa website, the ministry said in a statement: “Given the tight timeframes involved, the Ministry undertook a sole sourcing arrangement as opposed to an open bid process which would have taken three months or longer to complete.

“Tourism was re-opening in five days, the website was going live in five days, and there was simply not enough time to develop and issue a Request for Proposal and then wait and evaluate the proposals. This is not unusual in circumstances such as this. Indeed, even the imminent Public Procurement Act makes provision for limited bidding in similar exceptional circumstances.”

The Ministry of Tourism said Kanoo was hired on standard commercial terms, adding that all health travel visa fees were paid into an account that the former controlled.

To end-March 2021, the Ministry of Tourism said some $9.8m in health travel visa had been collected and $7.4m in related expenses paid, leaving a $2.4m surplus. 

It added that 82 percent of the revenues were generated by tourists, with the remaining 18 percent coming from visitors. Some 65 percent of the expenses covered related to health insurance costs, while 30 percent was associated with administering the rapid antigen test.

Kanoo has also received from the Government a three-year contract to implement an electronic payment system for the family courts, and a two-year contract with the Department of Social Services to provide digital assistance to its clients.