The Tribune

• Ex-minister: Christie Gov’t outlay may have hit $80m

• Audit report revealed ‘mischief’ on how monies used

• Study not disclosed due to ‘gotcha’ politics rejection

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Christie administration’s investment in the Bahamas Agricultural and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI) could not be fully accounted for but may have hit $80m, an ex-minister affirmed yesterday.

Michael Pintard, former minister of agriculture and marine resources, told Tribune Business there was “no way” for the Minnis administration to trace and determine the extent of the taxpayer’s commitment in setting up the north Andros-based school in 2013-2014 because its predecessor had channelled the expenditure through multiple ministries and agencies.

With an outlay of at least $50m confirmed, he added that the last administration imposed “a range of controls” at BAMSI after an audit report it commissioned detected “mischief” and irregularities relating to how funds were being spent.

Nevertheless Mr Pintard, a contender for the Free National Movement (FNM) leadership at the party’s upcoming convention, declined to detail precisely what that audit report uncovered other than “some persons were inclined to misbehave” due to the absence of financial controls. He also declined to name who those “persons” were.

The Marco City MP said both himself and his ministerial predecessor, Renward Wells, had decided against making the report’s findings public because they did not want to engage in “gotcha” politics against their opponents and instead preferred to focus on the business of governance.

Describing the idea and intent behind BAMSI’s creation as “good”, Mr Pintard said Bahamians wanted governments to solve the country’s problems rather than digging up so-called ‘dirt’ for use against their predecessors. He acknowledged that the FNM’s recent general election campaign failed to recognise this, and may have missed the mark by focusing on negative attacks.

And, when it came to agriculture and marine resources, Mr Pintard said he was offering to assist his successor, Clay Sweeting, to improve food security and both sectors’ economic contribution for the benefit of The Bahamas and “good governance”. Yet he warned the new administration will lose the opportunity to build upon what they have inherited if they “get caught up in politics”.

The taxpayer’s BAMSI exposure became an issue during Monday’s late afternoon House of Assembly exchange between Mr Sweeting and his predecessor, after the former accused the Minnis administration of failing to realise “the vision” for the school and not connecting it to the electricity grid.

Refuting the electricity assertions, Mr Pintard responded: “Just so that you understand the context, what is also true is you have in your possession a report that I’ve not referred to over the course of the last three-and-a-half years, which is the audit, really a financial report of activities at BAMSI, which we sought not to raise.

“Neither minister (Renward) Wells who had had his commission, neither under my tenure, because we thought once you are in the chair, you govern as opposed to engaging in ‘gotcha’ moments.

“So I’d like for you to review that report. I would gladly come back and discuss the details of that audit. But I did not think it appropriate for the administration to be embroiled in that. That’s a function of the Auditor General and not mine,” he continued.

“So I just wanted to say that when you talk about the absence of anything over the last four years, financial controls were put in place to remedy the mischief that that report outlines in tremendous detail.”

And, referring to the expenditure required to create BAMSI, Mr Pintard added: “The former [Christie] administration allocated roughly around $50m to $80m....we couldn’t trace exactly where the figures were.”

Contacted by Tribune Business for clarification yesterday, the former Cabinet minister confirmed he had been explaining that not all monies invested by the Christie administration in BAMSI could be traced and accounted for. And, while a $50m minimum outlay had been established, this may have risen as high as $80m.

Asserting that his exchange with Mr Sweeting has not been “a money dispute per se”, Mr Pintard said he had simply sought to make the point that “you hold the office now, you have the responsibility for governance, let’s get on with the business”.

But, prompted by this newspaper, he confirmed that the Minnis administration had commissioned “a study because we were interested in the challenges facing BAMSI. That was designed to ensure there were a range of financial controls put in place, but I don’t want to delve into the irregularities found.....

“It was just an absence of financial controls in place to track a number of things. As a result of that, some persons were inclined to misbehave.” Mr Pintard declined to comment further.

However, the audit report uncovered that some persons were writing inflated cheques for sums higher than the amounts required to purchase specific items for BAMSI. They would then convert the difference between the inflated sum and purchase price for their own personal use.

Tribune Business was told this became “a routine activity” at one point, while the report’s authors were unable to locate whole batches of cheques to perform accounting reconciliations on. They also encountered difficulties obtaining co-operation from banks where the cheques were deposited and/or cashed, and had to get “very forceful” to obtain the information sought.

As a result of the findings, several persons departed BAMSI “without a whimper” although a minority took their grievances to the Labour Department. Some even began co-operating with the investigation by exposing the misdeeds of others.

Meanwhile, Mr Pintard said the former Minnis administration was never able to come up with a precise figure on how much was spent to create BAMSI. “A substantial amount of money was invested by the former PLP administration, and the intent was a good one,” he told this newspaper.

“But there was no way to determine what the amount was because the spending was done through multiple government ministries. When monies are allocated through the Prime Minister’s Office, we are unable to properly trace them unless the prime minister in office at the time was minded to disclose those figures.”

Suggested that former prime minister, Dr Hubert Minnis, would have had to dedicate significant time and resources to uncovering the necessary figures, Mr Pintard reiterated: “We did not, at the time of leaving office, determine what the total spend was.

“Whenever we looked at it from the Ministry of Agriculture’s standpoint, and BAMSI’s standpoint, and they are two different things, we are unable to determine the substantial amount of money spent.”

The unconfirmed investment in creating BAMSI, and the absence of proper financial controls once it became operational, again raise concerns over whether Bahamian taxpayers are getting value for money via government spending and if there are sufficient checks and balances on how their dollars are used. 

However, the former Cabinet minister said he preferred to look forward rather than back. “We have well over $50m sitting in the ground already. It’s an obligation of any government to make it pay dividends for Bahamian citizens and the people’s money already spent,” Mr Pintard told Tribune Business.

“I would love for him [Mr Sweeting] to succeed. Our situation is critical and given the disruption in the food supply chain for most items we have to do things with a sense of urgency to catch up because we will otherwise have problems in the long run.”

Mr Pintard said Mr Sweeting that the Government could make a real difference if they follow through on executing initiatives already “in train”, but warned that if they “get caught up in politics they will lose those opportunities”. He revealed that he was “minded to be helpful” to the new administration but it also needed to acknowledge the work done by its predecessor.

He added that himself and his successor were on the same page about the need for BAMSI to stop competing against farmers, and instead focus on education as well as field tests and experimental growing. Noting that crop and cultivation losses were not being reported, Mr Pintard anything that remained of its 800 acres could be leased to commercial entities.