The Tribune

THE ruling in the Baha Mar court case that saw $1.6bn being awarded to Sarkis Izmirlian in his battle with China Construction America (CCA) has raised plenty of questions.

Some of those were raised yesterday in the House of Assembly by former Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis.

Dr Minnis was speaking following a report in The Tribune about the appointment of former CCA senior vice-president Daniel Liu to a role with the Bahamian government.

The report noted that Mr Liu had been appointed as a “special envoy” by the Davis administration.

Who said this? Well, Mr Liu himself. His biography was listed in a brochure for an entity named SilverStar Management Group Company. Mr Liu is listed as its president and managing director. He is also listed as having been “officially approved from Bahamas government as ‘special envoy to China’.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell said different. When asked by Tribune Business, he said “No, he’s not the special envoy to China. No, that’s not correct.”

He added: “He may have a designation from time to time as a ‘special envoy’ but not special envoy to China. He’s a special envoy, but not to China. I believe the way special envoy works is when a senior government official requires someone to be utilised from time to time that happens, so he can call himself that but not to China. That’s the issue.”

Dr Minnis was right to have questions after that bundle of confusion.

He asked in the House for the government to clarify matters – including why the details of Mr Liu’s hiring are being kept from the public. He wanted to know why Mr Liu was appointed to the envoy role and who authorised it.

Let us just be clear here – if Mr Liu is working as a special envoy for the government, then he is working for you. He would be a public servant. There would be no reason for details of his appointment to be shrouded in any mystery whatsoever.

Dr Minnis also pointed out a previous Tribune Business report – with Mr Liu asking the son of then Prime Minister Perry Christie’s top policy adviser to intervene over the number of Bahamian construction workers at the Pointe. Emails were revealed in the New York State Supreme Court with Mr Liu making an urgent request for help within days of Sir Baltron Bethel altering the wording of an agreement to make clear that The Pointe’s 70/30 labour ratio in favour of Bahamians applied to construction workers only.

For Dr Minnis, this led to a simple question – what is Mr Liu’s relationship with the PLP?

 He also asked whether Mr Liu is a Bahamian citizen and what were the circumstances of that citizenship grant if so. Does he have a diplomatic passport? Has he been vetted by police?

These are all straightforward questions about a public servant. There should be no reason not to give any answers. If Mr Liu has a simple envoy role, then it should be simple enough to reveal when he was appointed, the details of his role, the circumstances as requested by Dr Minnis, and so on.

And now it has been raised in Parliament, the answer should be given to Parliament.

It’s as simple as that.

Unless, of course, answers are not given.

Then the main question becomes “Why not?”

Mr Liu works for you. Let us hear what he does for the nation.