The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

Save the Bays’ legal director yesterday branded the controversy surrounding Jerome Fitzgerald as “karma is a b”, adding that the Bahamas’ international reputation has been dealt “yet another blow”.

Fred Smith, the Callenders & Co partner, pointed to the irony of the e-mail revelations showing that the Minister of Education, Science and Technology was using his Cabinet position for private advantage by lobbying to get business for his family’s firm at the Baha Mar project.

For Save the Bays is currently locked in a furious battle with Mr Fitzgerald and the Government over the Minister’s decision to read out its private e-mails in the House of Assembly, something the advocacy group believes was a breach of its constitutional rights and privacy.

With The Tribune’s revelations effectively creating a ‘role reversal’, Mr Smith said “karma is a b”, but added that the disclosures concerning Mr Fitzgerald were nothing new.

He added that as an attorney who had represented numerous foreign investors in the Bahamas over the years, he had seen and learned of numerous approaches by “fixers and consultants” seeking money.

Mr Smith described the revelations as “the tip of the iceberg”, and said: “I guarantee you that if we had a Freedom of Information Act and we dug deep into all of these Heads of Agreements signed by successive government, so much dirt would be exposed.

“The Bahamas has a very bad international reputation for endemic corruption. I have been dealing for decades with investors in Freeport, and they have constantly been approached by fixers and consultants, and commission agents and politicians, who can grease the wheels of permits.

“We have a very bad reputation and this this is only going to make it worse. The Bahamas so desperately needs a Freedom of Information Act.”

E-mails leaked from a data breach of China Construction America’s (CCA) servers reveal that from as early as 2013, Mr Fitzgerald was seeking to secure millions of dollars in brokerage, trucking and limousine contracts at Baha Mar while he sat in Cabinet.