The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Marina operators yesterday disclosed they have heard “nothing” about the online charter fee portal that was supposed to be created via a controversial $3.355m contract award.

Peter Maury, a past Association of Bahamas Marinas (ABM) president, told Tribune Business that industry operators had asked how their clients could pay the 4 percent Port Department charter fee prior to the winter boating season but received no answers from either that agency or the portal’s selected developer, DigieSoft Technologies.

The DigieSoft portal was to replace the SeaZ Pass solution developed for the ABM, which the Government ordered shut down in October 2022 amid allegations - vehemently denied - that not all charter fees collected and due to the Public Treasury had been paid over.

But with no information forthcoming on the nature and timing of DigieSoft’s solution, Mr Maury said foreign yacht charters have not only been deprived for over a year of a convenient mechanism through which to pay the 4 percent Port Department fee, but taxpayers are now carrying the burden of financing a “non-existent” portal that the private sector previously funded at no cost to the Bahamian people.

With the DigieSoft contract award engulfed in fresh controversy this week, after a top civil servant alleged it was executed irregularly and failed to follow public service rules (see other article on Page 1B), Mr Maury said himself and the rest of the marina industry have heard “nothing” over progress on the replacement online portal.

“We’ve asked,” he added. “We even asked before the season started. We said: ‘Where do we pay? How do the boats register so that we can pass it on to our guests?’ There’s not even a portal.” The former ABM president also voiced surprise that a software company such as DigieSoft Technologies has no website or social/electronic media presence, something that this newspaper confirmed via online searches.

The Government and Ministry of Finance ordered that the ABM’s SeaZ Pass portal, which Mr Maury said had collected $4.5m in charter fees by that point, close in October 2022 amid a dispute over whether its digital payments provider, Omni Financial Services, had passed on all funds due to the Public Treasury. This was vehemently denied and disputed by Omni.

However, Kwasi Thompson, the Opposition’s finance spokesman, argued that if the Government had concerns over whether it was receiving the fees due, it could simply have ordered the ABM to drop Omni and switch to another digital payments provider to perform the same function.

Mr Maury, who was ABM president in October 2022, recalled how he was summoned to a meeting with Simon Wilson, the Ministry of Finance’s financial secretary, and Lieutenant Commander Berne Wright, acting Port Department controller, where he was told to “take down” the SeaZ Pass portal.

“I said: ‘What are you talking about? We have a 10-year contract to collect and submit to the Government’,” Mr Maury recalled. It was then that the non-payment of due charter fees to the Government was raised, but he added that every Friday, for SeaZ Pass’s entire 16-month existence, some 35 persons - including in the Port Department, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Tourism - received financial updates on the portal.

“It said this is the amount deposited or wired to the Public Treasury,” Mr Maury added. “For 16 months no one bothered to look and see if $4.5m was there? I cannot reconcile the Government’s accounts. The ABM made nothing from it. Our hope and request was that the Government would use some of the monies collected to fix the navigation lights in our country.

“Now the portal doesn’t exist. There’s no way to pay this fee other than walk into a government office at the port and pay at the desk. There’s no online portal..... They want to run everything through the portal and and the portal has not existed since October 2022 when they shut us down.

“The boats were flowing, money was going into the Government, fuel was being bought, groceries were being bought and yet, today, the marinas are at a standstill. I hear the Caribbean is doing well. We’ve managed to ship all our business to them once again. The worst part is that no portal exists.”

Besides payment of the 4 percent Port Department fee on yacht charters, Mr Maury said SeaZ Pass was also used to submit and receive charter certificates online. “There’s Bahamians stacked up waiting for charter certificates,” he added, attributing this to the absence of any online portal. He added that the ABM had paid $50,000 to have SeaZ Pass added to its site in comparison to DigieSoft’s $3.355m.

The DigieSoft contract came back into the spotlight this week after Antoinette Thompson, the top civil servant in the then-Ministry of Transport and Housing until she was placed on “unrecorded leave” in April 2023, claimed this and another deal were signed and executed by junior officials “without the knowledge or authority” of herself even though - as permanent secretary - she was the one required to sign-off.

She is alleging negligence, including “failing to follow civil service procedure” in the presentation of the DigieSoft Technologies and Adolpha Maritime Group contracts, and effectively cutting her out of the process and “usurping [her] authority”.

The annual $3.57m award to Adolpha Maritime Group is for the maintenance of navigational aids in Nassau and other harbours across The Bahamas. However, Mr Maury alleged: “Absolutely nothing has been done with the navigational aids. There’s no navigational lights to our harbour, which is one of the busiest this side of the Caribbean.”

Tribune Business previously reported that the Prime Minister, in concluding the 2023-2024 Budget debate, asserted that proper processes were followed in awarding the $3.355m contract to DigieSoft Technologies even though the Government’s own procurement site listed another company as the winner.

The Government’s procurement portal lists Infrasoft Technologies as the bid winner but, when the ‘view award’ link is clicked, the pop-up states: “The Ministry of Transport and Housing has awarded the contract for the creation of the online portal for the Port Department to DigieSoft Technologies.”

Mr Davis, though, added that the Infrasoft bid was never approved by Cabinet and, instead, DigieSoft went through the necessary vetting and approval by his Cabinet.

“We are happy and proud of the young Bahamian men behind DigieSoft who are creative, talented and extremely bright. It is high time young Bahamians were given equal opportunity to compete for Government contracts,” he said, without identifying DigieSoft’s principals.

“These young men have educated themselves, returned home and are making a positive contribution to The Bahamas. They have earned whatever reward they receive, and deserve our support and respect.”