With an ongoing spat between the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) and Free National Movement (FNM) over the attorney general’s conflict of interest in the Baha Mar debacle, Democratic National Alliance (DNA) Leader Branville McCartney is calling for Prime Minister Perry Christie to break his deafening silence.
This is not the first time McCartney has invited the prime minister to respond to the controversy surrounding the $3.5 billion Cable Beach project. But he said his concerns went unanswered.
“My question today is specific to the prime minister of the country who has been very quiet regarding the debacle regarding the conflict that’s been going on in Baha Mar,” McCartney said yesterday during a press conference held at Halsbury Chambers.
“The question is this, whether or not the prime minister is aware that there are other Cabinet ministers and members of his government that have interests in the Baha Mar project. Specifically, it is alleged directly or indirectly that the prime minister may have interests in the project. That is the talk. I think the prime minster owes it to this country to clarify those allegations.”
For several weeks, Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson has been criticized by members of the opposition for having a conflict of interest in the development after she revealed that her daughters and husband had retail spaces within the resort.
The attorney general said that despite her family’s business relations with Baha Mar, which she says Prime Minister Perry Christie is fully aware of, she has no personal ties to the project.
“I have no interest in or control of any company with ownership in Baha Mar,” Maynard-Gibson said.
As attorney general, she has acted as the government’s chief liaison with Baha Mar, the Export-Import Bank of China and China State Construction Company, as those parties work through their differences to get the project completed.
Two weeks ago, FNM Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis insisted that the position of Maynard-Gibson was “an overt conflict of interest.”
According to Minnis, no FNM member of parliament has any interests of any kind in the Baha Mar development.
He then welcomed the prime minister to confirm whether he could say the same about his own members of parliament.
McCartney said that he strongly believes that something is amiss with the whole situation.
“The government in my view has not been totally honest with this country,” he said. “The prime minister needs to come clean with the Bahamian people.”
