By NEIL HARTNELL
Tribune Business Editor
nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
A former Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) chairman has called for “the chips to fall where they may” in any investigation into claims that a government official received a $300,000 bribe to help win a contract with the energy monopoly.
J Barrie Farrington, who held the chairmanship at time the alleged bribes were paid by French energy giant Alstom (then called ABB), pledged that he would not relent in seeking to unmask the alleged bribe taker.
Mr Farrington confirmed to Tribune Business that he was writing to Prime Minister Perry Christie, urging him to appoint a “non-partisan commission” to investigate the bribery claim, the details of which Alstom agreed as part of a $772 million settlement with the US Justice Department.
“Whatever is revealed is revealed, and let the chips fall where they may,” Mr Farrington told Tribune Business. “I’m not going to let it go, I can assure you.
“I want to get to the bottom of this. It’s a terrible thing. I would feel terrible if it turned out to be a former Board member. I can’t begin to imagine anyone doing that.”
Mr Farrington thus joins PLP chairman, Bradley Roberts, in calling for a formal government investigation into the contents of Alstom’s plea agreement, which state that a $325,000 bribe was paid in instalments to an unnamed Bahamian official to help it win a 2001 bid to supply BEC with a slow speed diesel generator.
Tribune Business’s revelations of the plea agreement’s contents last week sent shockwaves through Bahamian political and economic circles, with the issue the main topic of conversation through Christmas and the weekend.
The identities of those involved are not contained in the court documents, which refer to the Bahamian as ‘Official 8’ and the US citizen who Alstom funnelled the bribes through as ‘Consultant I’.
The only clues to the Bahamian’s identity are assertions that they were a BEC Board member, and that they were appointed to oversee the generator tender process by the-then chairman, Mr Farrington.
Mr Farrington yesterday said he could not remember who he appointed, but said the details contained in the plea agreement seemed very specific and genuine.
“They make reference to Board papers and dates. It seems to be pretty detailed,” he told Tribune Business.
The Attorney General’s Office has already indicated it will ask the US Justice Department for the necessary documents. With the US having done the ‘heavy lifting’, many observers believe it should be relatively simple to investigate and bring charges in the Bahamas.
Several observers, though, have suggested that ‘Official 8’ is unlikely to have been a BEC Board member for several reasons.
First is the calibre of people on the Board at that time. Apart from Mr Farrington, they included former FNM deputy leader, Loretta Butler-Turner; Brian Moree QC, senior McKinney, Bancroft & Hughes senior partner; former Bahamas Financial Services Board chief executive, Wendy Warren; ex-CIBC FirstCaribbean managing director, Sharon Brown; and late businessman, Vince D’Aguilar (who resigned over the decision to select Alstom).
All are regarded as incorruptible, outstanding Bahamians. And, in turn, the then-Board unanimously voted to give the contract to Alstom’s rival, Hanjung, a strange act if one of them had been bribed.
Observers have also suggested that no single BEC Board director would have had the ability to influence the contract award by themselves, as it would ultimately have to be approved by Cabinet.
However, Board sources from the time suggested that the then-Ingraham Cabinet’s decision to award the contract to Alstom “didn’t seem quite right at the time”, especially given that it overrode a unanimous Board recommendation.
Tribune Business was subsequently told that the then-government was influenced to award the contract to Alstom in a bid top curry favour with the Spanish government (even though Alstom is French) which, as a member of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), could have aided the Bahamas’ goal of escaping that organisation’s ‘blacklist’.
Frank Watson, the former deputy prime minister who had responsibility for BEC at the time of the ‘bribery’ events detailed in the Alstom plea bargain, previously said he had no knowledge or suspicions that anything untoward might have been happening.
He told this newspaper that the bids were evaluated by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which was “satisfied” that the Government should go with Alstom/ABB.
The plea agreement, filed in the US District Court for Connecticut, reveals: “Alstom disguised its books and records payments to Bahamian officials to obtain or retain business in connection with the power projects for Alstom and its subsidiaries.
“Alstom retained Consultant I who, as certain Alstom employees knew, was a close personal friend of Official 8. Consultant I’s primary purpose was not to provide legitimate consulting services to Alstom and its subsidiaries, but was instead to pay bribes to Official 8, who had the ability to influence the award of the power contracts.”
The plea agreement revealed that Consultant I had no knowledge of, or expertise in, the energy industry. Instead, he/she sold furniture and leather products, and exported chemicals and spare parts.
“Alstom and its subsidiaries were ultimately awarded the power projects by BEC,” the court documents confirmed, with payments routed via Consultant I to Official 8, and disguised as consulting fees and commission, “in exchange for his assistance in awarding the projects” to the company.
The first $74,229 payment to Official 8 was made on June 9, 2000, some seven weeks after Consultant I asked to set up a meeting involving the Bahamian official and Alstom personnel.
Further e-mails from summer 200 disclosed that Official 8 was attempting to speak with the Department of Immigration, but he was “not going to move forward” until he and Consultant I received some kind of contract with Alstom.
This demand was accepted by Alstom within 24 hours. The energy company, though, was by early 2001 getting nervous over its prospects for success, with Consultant I telling them: “I have Official 8 going down to BEC to talk with a high-level official to try to get a feel for what’s going on.”
The contract in question was clearly the DA 12 diesel generator, as the documents note that Alstom received its Letter of Acceptance on March 1, 2001 - just one day after its bid was approved by the then-Ingraham Cabinet.
A further five cheques were issued to Bahamian Official 8 between May 15, 2001, and February 1, 2013, in the amounts of $56,000, $42,000, $42,000, $40,000 and $27,000.
Comments
Well_mudda_take_sic 9 years, 2 months ago
J. Barrie Farrington is a well known Uncle Tom who has spent his entire career in the hotel industry shafting the Bahamian people, much like Ed Fields and Robert "Sandy" Sands. His outrage over the recently disclosed bribery incident should have been exceeded by his outrage many years ago when the decision of the BEC Board that he chaired was over ridden by Frank Watson. But Barrie Farrington was only too content back then to remain silent, even though he must have known full well that money was changing hands at a "higher level" to over ride the decision of the BEC Board he chaired. To put it politely, Barrie has only himself to blame for the "silent" duplicitous role that he has ended up playing in the BEC bribery incident more than a decade ago that has since cost all Bahamians undue hardship in the exorbitant levels of their light bills received from BEC. Farrington should hang his head in shame and should himself be subject to a full blown investigation for not having spoken up at the time the decision of the BEC Board that he chaired was over ridden. QED!
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