Minister of the Environment and Housing Kenred Dorsett and Chairman of the Bahamas Mortgage Corporation Alex Storr is calling on The Tribune to retract comments concerning BMC’s audited financials.

“Contrary to reports in the Tribune morning daily, the Bahamas Mortgage Corporation (BMC) has been conducting audits as required by law since the Christie Administration took office. In 2012, when I took the helm, as Chairman, at BMC it was discovered that there had not be an audit carried out since 2008,” they said in a joint statement.

“To remedy this, we contracted the firm of Beneby & Co., which produced audited financial reports for 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. This of course was a herculean task given the amount of transactions and clients that BMC has,” Mr. Storr said.

Storr says that BMC is having audits done from 2014-2015 and that information will be presented to the minister as soon as possible and the delay in this process was caused by the death of the principal owner of the auditing firm.

“The Minister and the Board of Directors are committed to adhering to the law including as it regards the conducting and tabling of financial audits. Presently, BMC is having audits done from 2014 to 2015, which we will present to the Minister as soon as they are completed.

“There was a delay due to the fact that the principal of Beneby & Co., Jeffrey Beneby passed away causing BMC to seek the services of another company to carry out the audit process,” Mr. Storr said.

Storr also added that the information presented by The Tribune is not factual and very misleading and does not reflect the actual completion of the matter which happened under Minister Dorsett between 2009 to 2012.

“In light of the facts that we have laid out, we ask that the Tribune correct the front page article which incorrectly states, ‘Records show that financials were consistently tabled under the former Ingraham Administration, but have not been tabled since.’

“This statement is misleading and does not reflect the true state of the matter as the House of Assembly has on it record the date that Minister Dorsett would have tabled the 2009 to 2012 financial which were completed on his watch,” Mr. Storr said.

In 2012, the government had committed roughly $10 million to its Mortgage Relief Plan, which was supposed to benefit around 1,000 out of an estimated 4,000 delinquent homeowners.