The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Auditor General should provide a “better picture” of the COVID food task force’s work, governance reformers said yesterday, after the Prime Minister accused one non-profit of using public monies for a $400,000 “spending spree”.

Matt Aubry, the Organisation for Responsible Governance’s (ORG) executive director, told Tribune Business the latest allegations surrounding the National Food Distribution Task Force made it “hard” for Bahamians to develop a full understanding of its achievements and where there was room for improvement.

Speaking after Philip Davis KC implied that one non-profit member of the Task Force, who he did not name, had misused taxpayer monies to finance the purchase of “high-end trucks”, a boat and a barge, the ORG chief said he hoped the Auditor General’s much-anticipated report on the $53m initiative will clear up any unanswered questions.

“The unfortunate aspect about all of this is that it’s hard to get a full picture of any of it,” Mr Aubry told this newspaper. “Coming out of COVID circumstances, trying to mobilise an effort of this kind, it’s very likely there will be missteps and things not organised or set up in the best possible way.

“The strategy was to mobilise non-profits in existence to see if they could use their community footprint and scale up to do this work. None of them, not even the Government, was prepared to do this work.” ORG helped set up and structure the Task Force, which has come under sustained attack from the Davis administration as it seeks to portray its predecessor as guilty of slack financial controls that resulted in the wastage, loss and misuse of taxpayer funds.

Returning to the attack yesterday, the Prime Minister used the mid-year Budget debate to focus on what he described as “the startling lack of controls surrounding the previous administration’s food programme. I can now report there have been further developments and, I suspect, much, much more to come”.

Mr Davis went on to assert that an unnamed non-governmental organisation (NGO) participant in the Task Force, and a principal who he also declined to identify, had returned some $100,000 cash to the Government as well as handing over two trucks, a boat and barge. He added that assets worth a total $400,000 had “been returned so far, and we’re looking for more from this person”.

Tribune Business knows the identity of the NGO in question, but has chosen not to reveal it because its principals did not return calls or messages seeking comment before press time. Separately, the Prime Minister also hit out an unnamed payment provider, who he accused of collecting $6.4m on behalf of the Government in work permit and other Immigration-related fees but failing to remit the funds to the Public Treasury.

The provider in question declined to respond when contacted by this newspaper because it had not seen or heard Mr Davis’ House of Assembly comments, and was unaware of the context in which they were made. As a result, this newspaper has also decided not to identify it by name.

On the Task Force NGO, the Prime Minister said: “After the food programme was ended, while other organisations were returning unspent funds to the government, an NGO - I have the name here but I won’t call it - an NGO chose to go on a spending spree while the funds were being returned” to the Government.

“They have the food money. I call it the food money and people trying to get it back to us,” Mr Davis continued. “Someone had asked me about why I ain’t bring the (COVID spending) report yet and this the only reason I’m talking about this, so you understand why the report has not yet come.

“Approximately just one month ago, the principal of this NGO returned to the Government.... We have now long been talking about this. Everybody is talking about where the money is. We just want to know what happened. This person, just a month ago, the NGO... sorry, he’s a guy. I can say it’s a guy. That identifies it’s a male.”

Mr Davis made the latter comments after the Opposition demanded that he name the non-profit and principal involved. “This guy, he returned $100,000 in cash, and he still has got more to bring,” the Prime Minister continued. “I don’t know whether he brought anything back yesterday or as I speak today.

“The same guy brought back two modified high-end trucks such as those to fuel jets, boats and watercraft. Two high-end trucks. He brought two boats, a speedboat and a barge. That’s what’s been returned so far, some $400,000, and we’re looking for more from this person. This exercise is continuing, and is continuing with respect to it.. the programme.

“All I can say... Everybody says I know this, I know that. It ain’t me. I don’t know nothing. I know nothing about that. Somehow we will get to the bottom of it all so that the Bahamian people truly appreciate what has gone on.” Mr Aubry yesterday said there should be “severe consequences” if any financial breaches or misconduct is proven relating to the COVID food initiative, with a clear understanding developed of how and in what context they occurred.

However, he added that it was important to understand the context in which the Task Force was hastily structured and put together. The Bahamian economy’s overnight collapse as a result of COVIC lockdowns, border closures and other restrictions meant the priority had to be getting food to thousands of Bahamians and their families who could no longer afford to purchase groceries to feed themselves.

Suggesting that the Government’s financial watchdog, the Auditor General, is best placed to provide an unbiased and comprehensive review of the National Food Distribution Task Force, Mr Aubry said: “The hope is we have a better picture, when the Auditor General reports, of what happened, what positives were achieved, what context has to be considered, what the takeaways are and modifications to be made, and how do we prepare for future crises.’

Sources spoken to by Tribune Business said the haste and circumstances on which the Task Force was created have to be properly weighed. Noting that the $400,000 sum referred to by the Prime Minister was less than 1 percent of the total $53m outlay, one contact said it was little surprise that some monies may have leaked out, but “that is different from saying the programme was a snatch and grab and the beneficiaries did not get the assistance”.

Mr Davis, meanwhile, turning to the situation involving the unnamed payment provider, said: “I spoke about lack of controls. Another matter, highly irregular and for reasons that remain profoundly unclear, the previous administration appointed a company - and I ain’t calling the name - as the sole collector of Immigration fee. This is contrary to practice since the Department was introduced where fees are paid directly to the Government.

“Under this exclusive contract, persons had to go to the various offices of this entity to pay for work permits and all other Immigration fees in cash. What’s deeply troubling is this company is not licensed to collect revenue or even engage in the provision of financial services. This is how loose and slack it was. We can only imagine why the previous administration entered into a contract with a company that was not licensed to trade in the terms of the contract.

“To make matters worse, they keeping the money they collected,” Mr Davis added. “From the start of this contract to when we stopped the arrangement in 2022, the company is estimated to have collected some $6.4m. When the Government approached them asking them to forward the monies collected, they said they were holding government revenue, in order to and I quote, ‘expand their business’.

“I’m sure that I don’t need to remind this honourable House that this is a wholly improper misuse of government funds. But it doesn’t end there. That’s Immigration. This company was also collecting taxes on behalf of the Government in a Family Island, and then again, keeping the money.

“This was the same company that provided $12m in loans during the pandemic as part of the government’s COVID-19 loans for small businesses scheme, and the company cannot or will not provide a single record of any of the loans.” The Prime Minister said investigations into the matter were continuing, and that some - but not all - of the monies allegedly owing to the Government had been paid over.

“The most generous interpretation of this state of affairs is that good governance and fiscal accountability were seriously lacking under the previous administration,” he added. Well-placed sources familiar with the situation, though, challenged the Prime Minister’s account on several aspects. They denied that the payment provider in question had an “exclusive contract” or that it was not properly licensed.

The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the payment provider was the first to participate in a “pilot” project designed to make Immigration cashless and prevent the leakage of fee payments via waste and corruption. Other payment providers later joined in the initiative.

Meanwhile, the Opposition accused the Prime Minister of seeking to create “a distraction” from the Government’s own performance and issues via yesterday’s revelations. Michael Pintard, the FNM’s leader, told Tribune Business: “It’s the same salacious details that they keep drip feeding to the public, and it’s unfortunate because what it’s doing is casting aspersions on all the NGOs and individuals involved” with the COVID food initiative.

“He was duty-bound to be very specific in his comments, and he failed to do so,” Mr Pintard said. “Certainly there’s a need for the Government to move in the direction of developing a cashless system.” He added that such processes needed to be installed in areas already compromised such as Immigration.