The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

AGRICULTURE Minister V Alfred Gray yesterday called Free National Movement Leader Dr Hubert Minnis a “hypocrite” over the latter’s call for him to resign over a $2.1bn agri-fisheries proposal with Chinese investors, as he accused Dr Minnis of being party to a “secret deal” between the FNM and Chinese officials for the “agricultural development” of thousands of acres of land in Abaco seven years ago.

Charging that “he who lives in a glass house should never throw stones,” Mr Gray laid into the Killarney MP, as he accused the previous FNM administration, of which Dr Minnis was a member, of allegedly striking a “private deal” with China Shandong Expressway Investment Holding Company Limited in 2009 for the “rent free” development of 10,000 acres of land in Abaco. Mr Gray claimed that the deal allegedly called for some 1,354 Chinese workers versus just 167 Bahamians.

Further seeking to highlight the FNM’s “hypocrisy” on the matter, Mr Gray also accused the party of giving “veto powers” or “total port rights” to Chinese investment holding company Hutchinson Whampoa in Grand Bahama, something he called a “bad deal” for Bahamians that “even the government could not override.”

Mr Gray has been under fire ever since it was reported that the government had given the “green light” to its embassy in Beijing, China to further pursue the proposal for a partnership between the Bahamas and China for development of agriculture and fisheries in Andros.

The proposal reportedly projects a $2.1b injection into the local economy over 10 years through an equal partnership between Bahamians and the People’s Republic of China. According to the report, the proposed partnership will entail the incorporation of 100 companies, with the agricultural products and seafood to be used for local consumption, and exported to China and the United States for sale.

The proposal also reportedly included the option to lease 10,000 acres of Crown land in Andros.

On Sunday, Dr Minnis called for Mr Gray to resign from his Cabinet post, charging that the proposal would bring the country one step closer to “being colonised once again.”

During a press conference yesterday, however, Mr Gray said “Minnis is not going to throw me out of town,” pointing to the FNM’s alleged previous deals with Chinese investors.

“I want Dr Minnis to know, what Cabinet concludes when he was in office, he has to take some responsibility for that,” Mr Gray said in response. “He can’t say ‘Oh, I am leader of the opposition now, in 2009 I was only in the Cabinet.’ Well, everybody knows Cabinet is collective responsibility. And the least I expect Dr Minnis to do is not be a hypocrite. I’m not saying it’s anything wrong with what they did. I’m just trying to point out that what is good for the goose in 2009 is no longer good for the gander.

“…But I’m not resigning because I have done nothing wrong. The Cabinet of the Bahamas was told of what I did, and I stand by what I did. There may be those who say I shouldn’t have done it, there may be those who would like for me to drop dead. I know, I am a politician and I understand that. But (Dr Minnis) is not going to throw me out of town. The people of the Bahamas, who elected me to office, and the prime minister who appointed me will have to do that.”

Mr Gray also said as a matter of policy, foreigners are not allowed to physically fish in Bahamian waters. The only thing foreigners are allowed to do, Mr Gray said, is engage in “fish farming.”

“So I ask the FNM leader to come clean and stop being a hypocrite,” Mr Gray added. “He knows the policy, and if he doesn’t know he ought to have known, because he was part of the government of the Bahamas for at least five years. And when you don’t know you get acquainted with the policies, so that when you make a statement, you don’t make a statement out of ignorance, and pretend that you didn’t know.”

Mr Gray also responded to the two initial stories on the controversy that were printed in The Nassau Guardian last week.

Mr Gray said that when he previously stated that the initial story was “utterly false,” he was in fact referring to that story’s headline, which he said yesterday was “very misleading” because “if you did not read the story, it would be easily concluded that there was a deal or a proposal before the government for its consideration.”

Accompanying the second of the two stories was a copy of Mr Gray’s October 3 letter to Bahamas Ambassador to China Paul Gomez about the issue.

Mr Gray apologised to the newspaper for previously suggesting that it did not print the whole letter, as he claimed the image of the letter he saw “did not include my signature or the penultimate paragraph dealing with fishing as non negotiable.” He claimed he was later told that the “other piece of the letter was about four pages into the Guardian.”

“I repeat, today, that there was no deal, there was no proposal before the Bahamas government for consideration at all, and still there is none,” he said. “The truth is the Bahamas ambassador advised me that he has not yet begun to talk to any investor about the initiatives which he presented to me.

“And so it is very difficult for me to see how some initiatives which the ambassador had could turn into a deal or a proposal when there was no second party even in discussion.”

Still, Mr Gray also said that while he fully understands and appreciates the widespread backlash to the issue, he cannot support any form of resistance to foreign investment.

“When people have money they spend their money anywhere,” he said. “They don’t have to come here. That’s why we have to be careful how we talk about not only Chinese, how we talk about people who bring business to our country.”