The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A well-known QC is threatening to turn his Judicial Review fire on the consultation process that will help determine Freeport’s future, due to the Government’s failure to publish a study conducted for it by a leading consultancy firm.

Fred Smith QC, the Callender’s & Co attorney and partner, told Tribune Business that stakeholders seeking to make “meaningful contributions” on Freeport’s future direction were “shooting in the dark” without access to the report produced by McKinsey & Co.

That study, Mr Smith said, had been ordered by the Christie administration, and was playing a pivotal role in guiding its approach to both Freeport’s expiring tax incentives, which sunset this August, and the city’s longer-term economic and social development.

Yet he told Tribune Business that persons appearing before the Government-appointed committee leading the Freeport consultation process had been denied access to the McKinsey report despite requesting a copy.

This, Mr Smith said, violated the Court of Appeal’s precedent-setting decision over BEC’s Wilson City (Abaco) power plant, which held that interested and impacted persons should be given every opportunity to participate in “meaningful consultation” over projects that directly affect them.

Arguing that the Freeport consultations are thus “fundamentally flawed”, Mr Smith threatened to launch Judicial Review proceedings to halt the Government-appointed committee’s work until the courts determined whether the McKinsey & Co report should be publicised.

Any delay, and especially a legally-imposed one, to a resolution of both Freeport’s expiring tax incentives and its wider development climate will likely exacerbate the uncertainty that continues to impact the city’s existing private sector and potential investors.

Yet Mr Smith suggested the “meaningful consultation” goal was more important, given that the McKinsey report’s contents “very much weigh in the balance of Freeport’s future”.

“The McKinsey report has not been made public,” the outspoken QC told Tribune Business. “It is obviously a fundamental piece of information which has been provided to the Government, after McKinsey conducted extensive local investigations.

“This is a report that must be made available to the public. This consultation process must necessarily be undertaken in a transparent, open and meaningful manner.”

Separately, Tribune Business sources have informed this newspaper that the McKinsey & Co report is being tightly held by Prime Minister Perry Christie and a core group at the heart of his administration. A number of key Cabinet ministers are also understood to either not have their own copy, or to not have fully read, the McKinsey report.

Apart from guiding the Christie administration’s thinking, Mr Smith said the McKinsey report and its contents were also critical to establishing the ‘Terms of Reference’ for the Government-appointed committee now conducting a second round of meetings with Freeport stakeholders.

That committee, headed by Dr Marcus Bethel, also includes the Prime Minister’s senior policy adviser, Sir Baltron Bethel; ex-Central Bank governor, James Smith; Grand Bahama Chamber of Commerce president, Kevin Seymour, and one of his predecessors, Dr Doswell Coakley.

Quoting several Government statements, which he said showed the McKinsey report’s importance to the committee’s creation and work, Mr Smith added: “Persons have asked for the study who appeared before the committee, and the committee has refused to provide the study.

“I have been invited to appear before the committee, and I am very keen to make a contribution to their deliberations, but the only way I can make a sensible contribution is to be as informed as the Government on the issues that might be contained in the McKinsey report.

“Having embarked on a consultation exercise, the law requires the committee to engage in meaningful consultation, which necessarily requires that those who have been invited to make representations or who may be affected by the committee’s ultimate report, must have an opportunity to review, consider and comment on the McKinsey report, so we are not just shooting in the dark.”

Mr Smith said the Court of Appeal’s Wilson City ruling meant “a new age has dawned in the Bahamas” when it came to public consultation.

“Unless the McKinsey report is made public, the consultation will a be fatally flawed process,” he told Tribune Business.

“Accordingly, I call on the Government to embrace the opportunity for meaningful consultation with stakeholders in Grand Bahama by hurriedly posting on its website the McKinsey report, so stakeholders can make sensible and informed contributions.

“If they do not, I shall bring Judicial Review proceedings to stop the committee continuing consultations until such time as the court determines whether the McKinsey report should be made public.”

Mr Smith may be running out of time to bring such an action, with Tribune Business sources suggesting the committee intended to end its meetings and interviews this month.

Yet, given Mr Smith’s track record, the situation still threatens to be another test of the Christie administration’s commitment to transparency in government and public affairs.

The Callender’s & Co partner, in speaking to Tribune Business, called upon the Government to be “sensible and mature”, and “avoid unnecessary litigation and controversy”.

When asked whether this would be viewed by some as the latest example of him being ‘obstructive’, Mr Smith replied: “I think that reasonable and mature people will appreciate that for a consultation process to be meaningful and effective, that’s precisely why people are informed with essential documents that are described within the terms of reference.”

Agreeing that the fate of the investment incentives/tax breaks expiring in August was “pivotal” to Freeport’s future, Mr Smith “lamented” that the issue was only being tackled “at the last minute, the 11th hour”.

“The entire future of Freeport is at stake,” Mr Smith told Tribune Business. “Since the Government commissioned the report, and McKinsey interviewed many, many people in Freeport, the information in that report very much weighs in the balance of Freeport’s future.”