The Tribune

By FAY SIMMONS

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

The Opposition’s leader yesterday said Parliament’s spending watchdog is seeking answers to a “range of issues” involving Bahamas Power & Light (BPL), sporting event cost overruns and a $250m IMF loan.

Michael Pintard, speaking ahead of yesterday’s Public Accounts Meeting (PAC), the only House of Assembly select committee that the Opposition controls, explained it will be investigating numerous Auditor General reports that raised concerns over how taxpayer funds are being managed and spent by the Government.

“The first issue we addressed was concerning the Consumer Protection Agency, and the concerns around whether or not they rented space for an inordinate amount of money or inconsistent with what we believe would be the appropriate rates,” he added. “We’re in the process of drafting the final report relative to that.

“We are now seeking to address a range of issues, and we thought it best to look at all of the audited accounts as a pathway to address any concerns we have about how funds are being managed and whether or not the processes in different government ministries are improving to prevent any irregularities.”

Mr Pintard accused the Davis administration of not being “committed to transparency and accountability”, and asserted that the Attorney General, Ryan Pinder KC, has sought to “put roadblocks in our way” - something the latter has denied.

As a result, the FNM leader said the committee has chosen to use the Auditor General’s reports to make inquiries about government spending relating to a $250m International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan that helped to fund COVID-19 expenditures.

He said: “We are going this route because we realise that this is not an administration that’s committed to transparency and accountability, and the Attorney General has previously attempted to put roadblocks in our way. Out of an abundance of caution, we sought to look at the range of reports already written by the Auditor General and utilise those reports as the basis for the initial inquiries that we are carrying out.

“Among them would be the audit of the IMF $250m loan. That is an issue that we think is critical. We also were looking at a number of the contracts issued by the Ministry of Finance, where reports were laid in the House with respect to that.”

Mr Pintard said the committee will be looking into the National Sports Authority over a period that includes both the Davis and previous Minnis administrations to investigate how funds are managed and what improvements have been made. He explained that due to concerns surrounding the audit of last year’s CARIFTA championships this is even “more relevant”.

“We wanted to look at the National Sports Authority, even covering the period that we were in government, because we know that the National Sports Authority has continued with a number of projects and the question is to what extent have they corrected any of the concerns that they had in the regulatory environment on how funds are being managed,” Mr Pintard added.

“This is even more relevant given the recent concerns raised about CARIFTA. That report has been laid in the House of Assembly, so we certainly intend to ask questions of the Auditor General and the acting Auditor General concerning the sports as well.”

On BPL, Mr Pintard said its glide path strategy, which saw customer fuel charges increase by up to 163 percent in just eight months, and whether the monies raised were used to pay down the utility’s fuel bill arrears, are among the issues to be examined.

“We also will be examining BPL,” he added. “There are a host of issues related to BPL inclusive of the glide path that the Government put in place that, in a dramatic way, raised the prices for the ordinary Bahamian and small businesses.

“We do know that the Government has not utilised the funds that were raised expressly for the purpose of paying off their arrears on the fuel. So the question is,: What did they use the funds for? How much funds were, in fact, raised? Did they comply with the requirements of URCA in terms of what they would do with the funds raised through the glide path?”

Mr Pintard said the Davis administration made an “illegal loan” to BPL by not adhering to the relevant regulations and called for the terms to be released. He added: “The Government also made an illegal loan to BPL, meaning that they must follow the provision both in the constitution as well as the Financial Transaction Act and the reality is they did not.

“These were funds that they made available, and only when we discovered that they did so they admitted that they just simply transferred funds to BPL. They have not determined the terms. We don’t know what the interest rate is. The Prime Minister in a letter to me admitted that they had not worked out the details and so that’s another issue we wish to raise.”

Mr Pintard maintained that receiving answers about these transactions is “very, very urgent”. He also called for the committee’s  proceedings to be made public, and noted that multiple letters have been sent to the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Patricia Deveaux, making this request, the latest on December 23, but to-date he has not received a reply.