The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

PROGRESSIVE Liberal Party chairman Fred Mitchell has dismissed opposition calls for Finance Minister Michael Halkitis to resign as “stupid”, escalating the government’s defence of the minister after he admitted he previously served as a director of Top Notch Builders.

Mr Mitchell, in a statement responding to the Free National Movement, said the opposition’s demand was based on what he called “far-fetched illogic” and insisted there was no conflict of interest.

“The demand for the resignation is as stupid as it is idle,” he said. “The position of the FNM is based in a far fetched illogic. This is a party still dumbstruck by their loss at the polls and in Michael Pintard's desperate attempt to hold on to his leadership, he is lashing out in every direction like a chicken without a head.”

“The fact is the Minister has no legal nexus that would suggest a conflict of interest. What you have is a set of rank, bitter amateurs in the FNM trying to play lawyer. They have no legal, ethical or moral case to stand on. What we have left is idle demands of a vapid political group."

The statement came after Mr Halkitis confirmed on Thursday that he previously served as a director for Top Notch Builders, reversing his initial denial of any involvement with the company when questioned by The Tribune a day earlier.

Mr Halkitis said he joined the company in mid-2019 after being approached by an attorney, not by Eric Gardiner, a convicted drug smuggler. He said the company suspended operations by April 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that he resigned from Top Notch Builders and all other directorships in 2021.

The disclosure had intensified scrutiny around allegations contained in a US Drug Enforcement Administration affidavit and questions about Mr Gardiner, an Election Day plane crash victim who has since been charged with drug offences in the United States.

Documents from The Bahamas’ registry of records have linked Top Notch Builders to Mr Gardiner.

Top Notch Builders secured the $35m deal to construct the government’s Eight Mile Rock administrative complex one day before the May 10, 2017 general election. Corporate records also revealed the firm owns Complete Construction, the company developing the government’s flagship Carmichael Village affordable housing project, which got underway last term.

Up to press time Thursday, both the FNM and the Coalition of Independents had called for Mr Halkitis to resign over his admission.

“As a private citizen I was involved in financial consulting and corporate services consulting,” Mr Halkitis said during an Office of the Prime Minister press briefing.

“I was approached to provide consulting and directorship services to Top Notch Builders, in particular setting up proper corporate governance procedures and structures.”

Mr Halkitis said he was not hired by Mr Gardiner.

“I resigned as director of that company and all the other directorships that I held in 2021,” he added.

Mr Halkitis said official records at the Registrar General’s Department would show the company’s corporate structure and ownership.

“All corporate documents are available from the Registrar General’s Department,” he said. “Anybody who’s interested in the complete story can get the complete set of documents which not only show who the directors are but who the shareholders are, who the owners of the company were at the time, and they would see that it’s not who some people say it was.”

Mr Halkitis served as Minister of State for Finance from 2012 to 2017 during the last Christie administration. He was sworn in as Minister of Economic Affairs and Leader of Government Business in the Senate after the 2021 general election.

In a 2017 document, Mr Gardiner testified that he did not own a single share in Top Notch Builders despite being “the president and a director” of the company. He asserted that Top Notch Builders was owned 100 percent by Paradise Productions Inc Company, an entity fully owned by Samson Hield, who has been listed in previous Tribune Business reports as the “lead contractor” for the Eight Mile Rock public-private partnership deal.

When asked how Mr Gardiner was able to obtain contracts with the government, Mr Halkitis said: "I don't want to comment on that."