The Tribune

By LETRE SWEETING

lsweeting@tribunemedia.net

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell yesterday defended Works and Utilities Minister Alfred Sears over the controversy surrounding the latter’s conflicting statements over the Bahamas Power and Light fuel hedging issue.

Mr Sears has been accused of misleading Parliament and there have been calls for him to resign.

However, Mr Mitchell shifted the blame onto Bahamas Power and Light saying that “BPL itself rejected recommendations for a fuel hedge”.

In a circulating voice note released on Monday, Mr Mitchell, chairman of the Progressive Liberal Party, accused the media and the Free National Movement of spreading untruths.

Mr Mitchell called out Michael Pintard, leader of the FNM as well as The Nassau Guardian and The Tribune for “practising to deceive” the public about who should be blamed for the fuel hedge controversy and discrepancies when Mr Sears admitted that he in fact was aware of the recommendation made to hedge oil prices in advance of the BPL surcharge increase this year for consumers.

“The bottom line is this, after all ‘the horse dead and cow fat’ all the nonsense that press and the FNM and all this stuff about BPL, the problem is BPL itself rejected the hedge left in place and they believed it would have been negligible in its effects and so not worth the effort,” Mr Mitchell said.

“What we know is BPL made the right decision on the hedge. It was not worth the paper written on. All of these millions of dollars claimed would have been saved was a fantasy on their part. As for The Tribune and The (Nassau) Guardian, oh what a web we weave, when first we practise to deceive,” he said.

Mr Mitchell claimed yesterday that Mr Sears did not mislead the House of Assembly on the question of the hedge to protect against an increase in future oil prices at BPL and in fact he corrected himself on the floor of The House of Assembly.

“Last week there was a concerted push by Mr Pintard, his colleagues to get Mr Sears to resign they said because he misled the House of Assembly on the question of the hedge to protect against future oil prices at BPL left in place by the FNM administration,” Mr Mitchell said.

“The only problem with their argument for resignation is that it’s built on a false premise. Mr Sears indicated that as soon as he recognised the error of his statement, he corrected it on the floor of the House. So, where then was the misleading? Misleading requires malice. That means that you knew it was false and you deliberately told a falsehood. Not so in this case. So, the whole Pintard FNM case collapsed on its face long before their demonstration in front of Mr Sears’ office. It was just showboating on their part,” he said.

Mr Mitchell added that the media also misled the public by “doing the work of the opposition”.

“The intrepid Nassau Guardian and (The) Tribune were doing the work of the opposition. They asked Mr Sears the question about the hedge during his press conference doing Michael Pintard’s dirty work, sabotaging the press conference, which was really on the renewal of the roads in New Providence and instead they brought that question up,” Mr Mitchell said.

“Mr Sears simply repeated what they said in the House.”

On Thursday, Mr Sears said that he misspoke in Parliament, which resulted in a misleading account of events leading up to the rejection of the BPL fuel hedging trades recommendation.

Mr Sears said he initially did not recall receiving the email on the matter when first mentioned by Mr Pintard, the opposition’s leader.

“I did not recall having received that email. And I stated that I wrote BPL, and I also wrote the PS (permanent secretary), and I asked: ‘Could you refresh me, and did I receive it?’ I didn’t get a response, a confirmation,” Mr Sears said at the time.

“For several weeks, I was in New York, and I took a day and I brought my old iPad. I went back personally and did a search, and I found that I did receive - I think it was on October 9 - I did receive an email with the attachments. It would have gone on to be sent on to the financial secretary, which is normal because they are the technical review in terms of financial clearance. It really was to access a loan which is managed by the Ministry of Finance,” Mr Sears said.