The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Ministry of Housing has moved to reassure Carmichael Village purchasers that their homes and investments are safe while asserting it knew nothing of the connections linking the project’s contractor to the general election day plane crash drug accused.

The ministry, in a statement e-mailed by Keith Bell, minister of housing and land reform, to Tribune Business, said existing residents - as well as prospective purchasers of homes in one of the Government’s flagship affordable housing subdivisions - “are not affected” by the fall-out from this newspaper’s revelation that Complete Construction is almost 100 percent owned by Top Notch Builders.

The latter is the Adelaide Road-based contractor that listed Jonathan Eric Gardiner, who is now in custody after being charged with involvement in a long-running conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the US, as its president and a director in 2017. However, the Ministry of Housing and Land Reform signalled it was unaware of this “when the project arrangements were made” and it had primarily focused on securing contractors deemed to have the capability and expertise to perform the work required.

“The ministry reassures homeowners and purchasers that their homes, investments and interests are not affected by these matters,” the Ministry of Housing and Land Reform said in its statement.

“The project arrangements were made with companies assessed as capable of carrying out the required works. When the project arrangements were made, the matters now being discussed were not before the ministry and appear to have formed part of foreign proceedings that remained sealed until recently.”

The Ministry of Housing and Land Reform’s statement, though, raises more questions - particularly over the level of due diligence that itself and other public entities, including the Carmichael Village Project Development Company special purpose vehicle (SPV) that oversees the project on the Government’s behalf - conducted on Complete Construction and its beneficial owners before awarding them the multi-million dollar construction contract.

Tribune Business has submitted a number of follow-up questions to Mr Bell following receipt of the Ministry of Housing and Land Reform’s release, including whether the Renaissance at Carmichael Village construction contract was ever put out to public tender via the Go Bonfire portal or any of the Government’s other public procurement platforms, and if there was any competitive bidding.

The Ministry of Housing and Land Reform, meanwhile, in its statement rejected allegations by Michael Pintard, the Opposition’s leader, that around $40m has been paid out “to any contractor or company” as part of the Carmichael Village project.

Mr Pintard previously questioned how much of the Carmichael Village project’s multi-million dollar financing went to Complete Construction and its owner, Top Notch Builders. He asserted that a total $40.2m has been invested in the development to-date, including the $20m initial injection from Jamaican financing sources, and $20.2m in taxpayer monies shown as being paid into Carmichael Village Project Development Company.

However, Tribune Business wrote at the time that the Government will likely dispute the $40.2m figure as Mr Bell previously said the $20.2m provided to Carmichael Village Project Development Company was intended to repay the original loan, with almost half that sum - some $10m - generated by the proceeds of real estate sales.

And so it has proved, with the Ministry of Housing and Land Reform asserting: “The project involved financing from a lender, payments for construction works and, later, repayment of that financing. Treating the financing and the repayment of the same financing as separate payments to a contractor is plainly incorrect.”

The ministry also said the Carmichael Village project is achieving the Government’s objectives of providing affordable, quality housing for Bahamians who would otherwise have been priced out of the market.

“Renaissance at Carmichael Village is a housing development built to deliver urgently -needed homes for Bahamian families at prices below many comparable private communities,” it added.

“The Ministry is satisfied that the project was structured on fixed-price terms at competitive market rates. Those terms helped deliver homes for Bahamian families at materially lower prices. The Ministry remains committed to the continued delivery of affordable homes for Bahamian families.”

Documents filed with the Companies Registry, which is maintained by the Registrar General’s Department, reveal that 4,999 of Complete Construction’s 5,000 shares are held by Top Notch Builders.

The paperwork, which has been obtained by Tribune Business following a database search conducted on its behalf, also discloses that Complete Construction’s officers and directors are virtually the same as Top Notch’s. Samson Hield, the former’s president, held the post of vice-president at Top Notch when the latter signed the separate ‘public-private partnership’ deal with the Government for the Eight Mile Rock administrative complex.

Other Complete Construction directors are listed as Marc Robinson, a financial consultant and its treasurer; Alecia Bowe, an attorney and its secretary; and Michael Cooper, an insurance executive who is named as its vice-president. The trio are also all named as directors and officers of Top Notch in the latter’s corporate filings, suggesting that Complete Construction is an alias or front created by the former as a special purpose vehicle (SPV) specifically to perform the Carmichael Village project.

There is no suggestion that any of Top Notch or Complete Construction’s officers and directors have done anything wrong, and there is nothing linking them to Mr Gardiner’s alleged activities or the charges against him. However, Mr Gardiner confirmed in a sworn affidavit that he was Top Notch’s president and director on February 13, 2017, although he denied owning shares, or having any beneficial interest, in the company.

The document appears to be an attempt to distance himself from ownership of Top Notch Builders by denying he has any beneficial interest in the company. Mr Gardiner testifies under oath that Top Notch Builders is instead owned 100 percent by Paradise Productions Inc Company, an entity fully-owned by Samson Hield, and subsequent corporate records appear to show this.

Yet multiple sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, have described Top Notch Builders as “his company” - meaning Mr Gardiner’s - although the extent of his involvement post-2017 is not reflected in the company’s corporate records filed with the Registrar General’s Department. As a result, there are likely to be questions over whether Mr Hield is fronting for Mr Gardiner.

Michael Coleman, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) special agent who swore the affidavit detailing the US government’s case against Mr Gardiner, alleged that the latter’s co-conspirators as recently as September 2024 said he “was currently building government buildings” and “reportedly trying to keep his involvement below the radar of law enforcement”.

“Based on my participation in this investigation, I understand that comment to be a reference to Gardiner’s company, which has bid on and secured Bahamian government-issued construction projects,” Mr Coleman claimed. “Gardiner owns a business that Gardiner uses to, among other things, bid on Bahamian government-issued construction contracts and launder his narcotics trafficking proceeds.”

Michael Halkitis, minister of finance, last week became embroiled in the Top Notch Builders controversy after he confirmed he was hired by the company “to provide consulting and directorship services” between 2019 and 2021 when he was neither holding ministerial office nor sitting as an elected MP.

However, Top Notch’s corporate documents clearly list him as its president and a director - the same role held by Mr Gardiner just two years earlier. There is nothing to suggest Mr Halkitis has done anything wrong in relation to Top Notch or Mr Gardiner, and he has denied holding the post of president, stating: “Never a president of the company, and I think he (Eric Gardiner) was the president of the company or someone else was the president of the company. I was never employed by the company."

Mr Halkitis’s status, as a former Cabinet minister and ex-minister of state for finance, would have been especially valuable to Top Notch and given it a credibility boost just at the time it was seeking financing to complete the Eight Mile Rock administrative complex in Grand Bahama after Leno Corporate Services was able to raise just $8.1m - less than one-third - of the $25m bond issued to fund the public-private partnership (PPP) deal.

The finance minister was also the former MP for Golden Isles - the constituency where Top Notch Builders is based. And he was also a sitting Cabinet minister, and minister of state for finance, when the Government signed the Eight Mile Rock PPP deal with the contractor and its fully-owned affiliate, PPP Investments & Construction Company, on May 9, 2107, just one day before that year’s general election.

The contract was signed, on behalf of the Ministry of Finance and the Government, by Simon Wilson, the financial secretary. In effect, between 2019 and 2021 prior to being appointed to the Senate and Cabinet, Mr Halkitis switched sides and joined the private sector half of the PPP, although there is no law or regulation to prevent this and no suggestion of wrongdoing on his part.

The Eight Mile Rock PPP contract, based on documents in Tribune Business’s possession, was drawn up by the Karam & Missick law firm that was representing PPP Investments & Construction Company and Top Notch, not the Government and the Attorney General’s Office. Karam & Missick subsequently changed its name to Bowe Partners, the law firm headed by Alecia Bowe as its managing partner.

Documents obtained from the Companies Registry show that Mrs Bowe’s law firm incorporated the Government’s Carmichael Village Project Development Company and Complete Construction Investment & Development Company within five months of each other on March 18, 2022, and August 8, 2022, respectively at a time when Jobeth Coleby-Davis - not Mr Bell - was minister of housing.

Mrs Bowe is also a director of both Top Notch and Complete Construction, thus meaning that the private partner being contracted by the Government to build Carmichael Village was also structuring the deal and forming the SPV rather than the Davis administration. Complete Construction’s registered office is given as Bowe Partners’ Caves Village address, while that of Carmichael Village Project Development Company is listed as Don Mackay Boulevard in Abaco.

And the initial subscribers for both entities are named as Adia Benita Roberts and Kenya Armbrister, whose address is also listed as Bowe Partners and who appear to be employees of the law firm.

Tribune Business records show that, in summer 2022, some $20m was secured from Jamaican finance house, Proven Wealth Ltd, to finance the 365-lot Renaissance at Carmichael subdivision with the transactions arranged through Bahamas-based alternative financing provider, Simplified Lending. The sum involved is the same as what the Government later provided to Carmichael Village Project Development Company.

However, the financing was dogged by controversy more than three years ago, after then-housing minister, Mrs Coleby-Davis, told the House of Assembly “there is no agreement with Simplified Lending and Proven Wealth Management” from the Government’s perspective. This was just weeks after the deal was hailed with great fanfare at a press conference featuring both the Prime Minister and Mrs Coleby-Davis, who said it will set “a new standard” for housing public-private partnerships (PPPs).

At the time, Mrs Coleby-Davis said in written House of Assembly answers that the $20m loan proceeds had yet to be received and disbursed, with the monies set to finance the development and build-out of a 70-acre site set to feature 200 homes in its first phase at Renaissance at Carmichael. The reliance on Jamaican financing is another similarity between the Carmichael Village and Eight Mile Rock administrative complex.