The Tribune

ALTHOUGH Attorney General Carl Bethel has said there appears to be nothing unusual in the terms of the now unsealed document for the sale of Baha Mar, there are those who have their doubts.

Nor did Mr Bethel find that the agreement had infringed Atlantis resort’s most favoured nation status. Here again there were those who disagreed, pointing out, for example, that Atlantis while under construction was allowed to employ 30 per cent foreign labour to 70 per cent Bahamian, whereas Baha Mar was allowed 70 per cent Chinese labour to 30 per cent Bahamian. Other concessions were being investigated and comparisons made.

Also on a radio talk show last month, former prime minister Hubert Ingraham pointed out how our economy had suffered by CEXIM’s construction company, CCA, for failing to live up to the dates that it had set for the opening of the resort in 2015. This breach of contract, he said, had resulted in Standard & Poor’s reducing The Bahamas’ credit rating to junk status because of the country’s worsening economic position. Wasn’t there a penalty clause in the contract for non-performance, and if so was it enforced? If not, why not? Mr Ingraham wanted to know.

“The reality is, they said they would do this. They haven’t done it, and why?” Mr Ingraham asked. This is a question that the public would also like answered. Yes, why?

Also there is another question that has never been satisfactorily answered. On Phil Ruffin’s sale of the Crystal Palace to Baha Mar’s developer in 2005, were all of his casino taxes owed government paid in full?

In the House of Assembly on October 8, 2014, then prime minister Perry Christie, who had been Mr Ruffin’s lawyer, assured members that Mr Ruffin’s outstanding tax balance had in fact been settled in full when his Wyndham and Crystal Palace casino was sold to Sarkis Izmirlian, Baha Mar’s developer.

The controversy was again ignited when Tribune Business exclusively revealed in February last year that the Auditor General’s report for the 2013-2014 fiscal year showed that government had revised upwards its estimate of Mr Ruffin’s taxes.

According to the Auditor General’s report, Mr Ruffin’s casino debt had increased by $2.147m from $5.13m to $7.277m as the result of a “review” by the Government’s Revenue and Tax Departments. The Auditor General maintained it had not been paid.

At the time, Mr Ruffin vehemently denied the report. He said all of his taxes had been paid through the law firm of Davis & Co. He demanded that then Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe, who in the House of Assembly, had backed the Auditor General’s position, should “desist”. However, Mr Wilchcome maintained his support of the Auditor’s report, while Mr Christie, also in the House at the time, said nothing, despite having told the House two years earlier that the Ruffin taxes had been paid in full.

On Saturday, we asked Mr Hubert Chipman, former Public Accounts Committee chairman, whose committee had been trying to investigate the report, what had been the results of those investigations. However, his committee had not been successful in getting the information. According to the Auditor’s report, an error had been made, which had to be corrected, resulting in the increase in the taxes. Mr Chipman said that at the time he raised the matter with Mr Christie, who said he believed the taxes had been paid. However, Mr Christie promised to investigate and get back to him. “But,” said Mr Chipman, “from that day to the dissolution of the House on April 11, I have heard no more from Mr Christie”. However, The Tribune has since heard a suggestion that $2m had been “waived”.

This was the people’s money – was it or wasn’t it paid in full? And, if waived, who would have the authority to blow away $2m of the people’s taxes? It should now be easy to get the answers. Mr Philip “Brave” Davis, Opposition Leader in the House, should be able to answer the question because he too was Mr Ruffin’s lawyer. So at the next meeting of the House we should expect a full accounting.

Also we would like Mr Davis to explain how he could have gone to Panama on April 29, 2015, to cut the ribbon and sing the praises of China Construction America (CCA)’s expansion into Panama City – a company whose non-timely completion of Baha Mar had not only embarrassed our country as a tourist resort, but had seriously crippled our economy. Surely there has to be some restitution for this very serious and damaging breach — in fact it was a serious and costly breach of contract.

However, at that ceremony, Mr Davis told his audience that as the financier, investor and builder of the Baha Mar project, CCA had helped “create thousands of jobs for the Bahamian people and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for local businesses. Finances, dedication, network capability and other resources are the assets of CCA: and these assets accomplish the seemingly impossible”. Somewhere in this mouthful of superlatives, Truth had lost its way.

Mr Davis should be embarrassed. He knew that back in Nassau Baha Mar was at a standstill, and though the public was made believe that the CCA developer would not start work on his own project — the Pointe –on West Bay Street — until Baha Mar had been completed, the Baha Mar miracle was already over, and preliminary work had started at the Pointe.

It is indeed an incredibly “brave” man who can still face the public having told such glaring untruths.

Maybe, Mr Davis has an explanation. If so there are many Bahamians who would like to hear it when next he takes to the floor of the House. However, this time, Mr Davis, please do all of us a favour and give Truth more breathing space.