Christie denies claims on spending

Former Prime Minister Perry Christie.

As of Friday, June 30, 2017

By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

FORMER Prime Minister Perry Christie yesterday condemned efforts by the Minnis administration to portray his government in a negative light, as he challenged the nation’s leader to carry out a “dispassionate examination of the record”.

During a lengthy interview at his Cable Beach home on Thursday, Mr Christie defended his administration from accusations of irresponsible spending, misfeasance and cronyism.

He also said he was “disappointed” by the allegations being tossed around by the new government concerning matters that transpired during his last term as prime minister.

Hitting back at accusations from members of the Minnis administration concerning the controversial pay out of more than $8m to one vendor for hurricane clean up and the write off of $1.2m to an airport tenant who was in arrears, Mr Christie described recent moves made by the government as a “misstep” by a party pandering to its base.

Mr Christie maintained that a review of documents relating to these two controversies would absolve his administration of any wrongdoing and prove that much of the FNM’s rhetoric is as nothing more than “political slogans.”

“One of the challenges I have as the person who led the government and who led the government into a defeat, was to accept the responsibility for it as I did when I resigned,” he said in response to questions on the criticism levelled at his administration in recent weeks.

“There was never any thought on my part that I was accepting responsibility for any degree whatsoever of criminality, irresponsible spending and the notion that ‘the cupboard is bare’ is just political slogans.”

“Why talk about (audits)? It is that kind of situation because it is so prejudicial to the findings of an auditor.

“Look, they have done it, I know and believe that the result that they are going to get is not what they are forecasting to people out there, because they are going to find that those of us who were committedly involved were working to help the country rather than harm the country,” he stated.

Defence

On the issue of Jonathan Ash being awarded more than $8m in hurricane related clean-up contracts without the matter going out for bids, Mr Christie defended the move, saying the country in the wake of Hurricane Matthew was in a state of crisis and as such officials in his government didn’t have any time to put bids out.

During his contribution to the budget debate, Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis said that Mr Ash’s request for payments were submitted through the Ministry of Works and the National Recovery and Reconstruction Unit (NRRU), the latter of which was established by the Office of the Prime Minister after Hurricane Joaquin in 2015.

In response Thursday, Mr Christie said: “There were compelling urgencies to work. During the hurricane itself, expenditure was incurred. We didn’t have any time to go talk about we were going to bid. We had to have trucks to go in to help in waters of three feet high and so forth and so on.

“When a country has experienced a hurricane with the ferocity of Matthew and generated refuse at the level at which we generated, where garbage sites were created and refuse sites were created all over (Nassau), it became an incredible challenge, both to coordinate and to effectively manage.

“And so, I’ve said and will say it again, talking to the Permanent Secretary for the Prime Minister (at that time Jack Thompson), talking to people who are officials at NEMA, talking to the engineers at the Ministry of Works; you are going to have a conclusion that good intentions were always throughout every effort we made.”

He continued: “(Mr Ash) said that he hired independent truckers and he named some of them. (Mr Ash) hired tractors, you know, heavy equipment people and that when he arrived at a next figure, it was nowhere near what was being described.

“… In fairness to the process, an examination of the files ought to have been made to see who gave him the contract, to see what the contract was - one garbage site, two garbage sites, three garbage sites; huge sites that he had to hire over 100 people and keep them hired to sort out the garbage so that you could have all the metal separated from refuse that you could actually mesh - and so one could actually justify at least how it was done.

“So my sense is this, that if you want to hold an inquiry, you do so.

“At the end of the day I am satisfied that they will see that there were persistent efforts, the coordinator of the Progressive Liberal Party, the honourable Shane Gibson, to ensure that we got dollar for value.”

Mr Christie also said: “In other words, people were paid on the basis value, which meant that certifications, not only for engineers, but from permanent secretaries; certifications put in place.

“I am satisfied that the files will show that.

“I am satisfied that if we wanted to, we can even show more, right, to demonstrate that they are going down the wrong track talking about criminality in this regard.”

Further defending his government’s actions, Mr Christie insisted that there was an attitude of “impatience” that permeated the country in the wake of Hurricane Matthew.

“Things were moving too quickly, there was a lot of impatience in the Ministry of Finance, a lot of impatience in Lowe Sound, (Andros) getting supplies, a lot of impatience in Freeport.

“These things were happening and we were impatient and we paid a heavy price for not being able to repair people’s homes in a timely fashion.

“They simply voted against us in that regard and many instances with respect to it,” Mr Christie stated with an apparent sense of exhaustion.

There were 46 transactions made to Mr Ash through several of his companies, Dr Minnis said, as he revealed that in at least two separate instances, Mr Ash received multiple cheques in one day. He also received $151,000 on May 9, just one day before the election.

Two of Mr Ash’s companies, Heavy Duty Company and Earth Movers Incorporation Company, were not registered with the Registrar General; his other company, Heavy Truck Lines Services Limited, was only registered in February 2017.

Dr Minnis said given the slow pace at which the government typically pays people it owes money, Bahamians would be surprised by the ease and quickness with which Mr Ash received his funds.

Disheartened

On the matter of his government’s handling of a $1.2m write off extended to a Lynden Pindling International Airport tenant, Mr Christie said he was disheartened to see Aviation Minister Dionisio D’Aguilar accuse the woman of receiving favours because of political connections. Mr D’Aguilar also told the House of Assembly that the tenant was allowed to not pay rent for five years under the Christie administration.

In response yesterday, Mr Christie said his efforts in the matter were never to coerce a particular decision or outcome, but rather to “protect a black Bahamian woman.”

“Why would you want to call a business woman’s name and have the press call her a crony, Christie’s crony, (insinuating) Christie had her paying no rent for five years when she paid over $4.9m in rent, and have all this thing put out there to the country and why?

“(Mr D’Aguilar) had no reason to do it that way at all,” Mr Christie added. “And no matter what level of enthusiasm they had in winning or what not, it is a misstep to go on miscategorising or take people’s reputation and put it out to the public in that way. I felt very badly about that.”

Mr Christie, 73, likened these two instances to the Free National Movement’s treatment of value added tax (VAT) while in opposition.

Mr Christie said the FNM, despite his party’s push to present truth and logic on the topic, constantly fed the public the belief that the PLP had misappropriated the revenue generated from the tax, only to later walk back the claim.

“I knew at all material times when they were talking about ‘where the VAT money gone’ or ‘who stole the VAT money,’ that they knew that was not true and ultimately after the elections they acknowledge that,” he stated with a look of disgust.

proudloudandfnm 6 years, 9 months ago

Please put tnis traitor in jail!!!

baldbeardedbahamian 6 years, 9 months ago

Sandilands perhaps???

proudloudandfnm 6 years, 9 months ago

Worst PM in Bahamian history.

The man will die in shame.

Traitor is not strong enough a word...

jackbnimble 6 years, 9 months ago

Tribune you had me going. So I have to wait for Friday's paper to read this? No fair!😂😂

Well_mudda_take_sic 6 years, 9 months ago

I added something else to my 'bucket list' today - Live long enough to be able to spit on Crooked Christie's tomb stone!

Sickened 6 years, 9 months ago

Hopefully you (and I) won't have to wait long.

John 6 years, 9 months ago

Christie is still in denial.. He can't believe himself, how he let PLP gangsters loot this country with no conscience, and left the country is shambles.

EasternGate 6 years, 9 months ago

Lying loser!

ThisIsOurs 6 years, 9 months ago

I agree with him on one point, the government so far is just throwing out red meat. People need to put aside the desire to see people fed to the lions and wake up to that, our country is in peril and we have to demand good thoughtful representation. Don't fall for the slight of hand magic tricks. They closed the budget debate with....nothing. Nothing. Nada. Just a bunch of but look what they do. It sounds oddly reminiscent of ...Perry Christie's PLP...but look what they do. They had more than enough time. The first 24 hours they had more than enough time to set the course. The course they'd been thinking about and planning for for the last five years. Nada.

Other than that, very nice shirt and I hope he can rest. Good luck Dr Minnis & Dr Sands.

Reality_Check 6 years, 9 months ago

In other words you see nothing wrong with what Christie and his co-conspirators in crime did, even though it involved the outright theft for self-gain of mega-millions of dollars of the people's limited financial resources. As for that nice shirt, you would be able to buy similar nice things and a whole helluva lot more if you had just one one-thousandth (1/1000) of the Christie family's ill-gotten net worth today.

ThisIsOurs 6 years, 9 months ago

"In other words you see nothing wrong with what Christie and his co-conspirators in crime did"

Uhmmmm...no...don't believe I said that. I did say the last group told us what the group before do and it got us nowhere. Get us somewhere please. I also said, nice shirt:)

Regardless 6 years, 9 months ago

...what do you expect? Look who they appointed as the minister of education, a talker, never been a doer!

BMW 6 years, 9 months ago

Been said before crisco butt is delusional.

banker 6 years, 9 months ago

Why do 99.5% of PLPs give the other half percent such a bad name?

Porcupine 6 years, 9 months ago

It is so easy to criticize Christie for his obvious misdeeds, ineptness, and cronyism, an altogether miserable legacy for this country. However, I would maintain that there is a wholesale corrupt culture of politicians in this country that the writing is on the wall. The world, and The Bahamas, is divided into the rich and the poor. It is not by race, country of origin or PLP and FNM. Once we understand that they all cavort together while the rest of us struggle to get by, the sooner we can move our world ahead. Minnis and his bunch are no less hungry and thirsty for all the trappings that they saw their predecessors get hold of. They have already abandoned their campaign promises at this early stage. Remember the divide and conquer strategy. They will not go after the criminals that came before them, for they are no better and are tangled up completely with every misdeed placed upon the backs of the Bahamian people. It ain't gonna get any better.

tell_it_like_it_is 6 years, 9 months ago

You have made some salient points. While I may not agree with everything, these things go so much deeper than party politics. Corruption is within ALL administrations and it's not something that I think is going away anytime soon (People get so caught up in the PLP, FNM, DNA - "Die Hard" nonsense).
My prayer is that hopefully our new PM Minnis will not follow along the lines of previous PMs and will root out MOST corrupt practices whether from the former administration or from his OWN party. (I highly doubt all corruption will ever be FULLY weeded out, I can settle for most). Once I see Minnis being tough on FNMs and PLPs who do nonsense (without partiality), then he will be fully respected.

Porcupine 6 years, 9 months ago

Fine. However, if there are no consequences for those at the top, the looting, plundering and pillaging will continue. I maintain that it is a culture of criminality that pervades this country that will not subside while any of are living. Minnis is too far down the rabbit hole. I fear he made his pledge to the numbers boys and his fellow politicians that have been working diligently to screw us over and move their money offshore.

DDK 6 years, 9 months ago

Hope and pray you are wrong on that one! Time WILL tell. Never hear about anything being debated in Parliament about the numbers houses. Now Parliament is closed for the summer with the country still in a serious mess....

themessenger 6 years, 9 months ago

Chester Cooper already put into perspective what the other half percent think about him and the PLP as a whole. Really surprised that we haven't heard from Birdie trying to re inflate a very deflated Christie.

realfreethinker 6 years, 9 months ago

themessenger,I thought the first comment on here would have been birdie.I guess he/she is having a hard time finding words to defend the lies.

concernedcitizen 6 years, 9 months ago

It seems we were robbed to the tune of a billion or more dollars , you take the 200 million that walked out the front door of BOB ,the 40 million from road traffic ,all those 8 million dollar contracts ,which Ash and his like split w/ whatever MP approved them , all the shady foreign consultants that were paid to get these crooks money overseas ,one of B Bethel oldest tricks ,,,,its got to be a billion or more of out and out theft . I just to think PGC was a good guy just weak ,but he Bethel ,Fitz etc presided over the largest looting of the Bahamain tax payer ever Sure the UBP cut the fat off the land for them ,,but they never burnt and sorched the earth like these hoodlums ..

watcher 6 years, 9 months ago

I still imagine what it must have been like at Christie's Cabinet meetings.....Right, whose turn is it this week to get their share?

No, not you Fred - you just spent half a mil on travel.

Glenys....Damn woman, you already spent all that money from the safe??!!

Brave - hahahahaha. Please man, you're killin me

Well, I guess it's me then.....them Atlanta expenses don't pay themselves

Socrates 6 years, 9 months ago

i couldn't agree with Christie's politics but as a human and political patriot, i salute him and wish him well in his remaining years.. its important to distinguish man from politics.. sh#**y politician in my view, but noble bahamian..

Tarzan 6 years, 9 months ago

Noble? Distinguished? Salute him? It is important to distinguish man from conduct? How else to you evaluate a man? This paean is a total joke!

concernedcitizen 6 years, 9 months ago

when you put Bagman Bethel as a consultant to the ministry of finance ,you have no honour

realfreethinker 6 years, 9 months ago

He look so frail. he seem to aged at least ten years since that may 10th royal cutass

Well_mudda_take_sic 6 years, 9 months ago

Don't let that photo fool you. It was staged and released to the press with the hope of eliciting comments like yours. Christie remains an evil monster sitting on very great wealth that he did not come by through honest means.

Porcupine 6 years, 9 months ago

Yup.

realfreethinker 6 years, 9 months ago

I am not fooled I was just making an observation. In death he couldn't get me to think differently of him. I long for the days to see his ass in prison

banker 6 years, 9 months ago

Where da wife?

Reality_Check 6 years, 9 months ago

I understand Fweddy Boy and some of his kind of 'friends' have been of great help in consoling Christie since his most embarrassing loss at the polls.

Well_mudda_take_sic 6 years, 9 months ago

That figures!

BahamasForBahamians 6 years, 9 months ago

Where's your wife? Are you takin gcare of your home? or is it just the tribune's comments?

Reality_Check 6 years, 9 months ago

Many but not all of us are happily married with current mortgages, paid-up bills, and no taxes owing thanks to our serious work ethic and willingness to put in full day's work for a full day's pay notwithstanding all the obstacles that have been put in our way by the likes of Christie. Now what say you?!

TalRussell 6 years, 9 months ago

Comrades! Don't allow yourself to be baited for a letdown. Politicians are all man's and woman's and by their very instincts - the temptation for corruption and outright thievery will always surface. All of the pretend sainthood you hear today will not prevent what is to follow some the red politicians as they attempt to line their personal and others connected to them pockets. They themselves done knows exactly who she and he is and so does members the public who will be watching their every move and decision...... But I await former PM Christie's comments later this Friday morning - cause he has lots explaining to offer for the past Five-years....lots.... and he cannot expect to repeal the negatives of the past Five-years without some serious clarifications to some strange things that are being alleged to have taken place under his term as PM...... is none this true??????

sealice 6 years, 9 months ago

A party pandering to it's base....... in this case DuMb AsS the BASE is the majority of the people in the country......another dumb ass statement from the PLP

banker 6 years, 9 months ago

Look at the cuffs on his shirt. His whole manner of dress is very "festive".

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by banker

realfreethinker 6 years, 9 months ago

Lol banker you ain't easy lmfao. Too funny They should have been handcuffs on his shirt.

realfreethinker 6 years, 9 months ago

Him and the GG mussy does shop at the same store

Reality_Check 6 years, 9 months ago

He looks absolutely miserable and dejected now that Fweddy Boy took back his pinky ring!

birdiestrachan 6 years, 9 months ago

I saw Mr. Christie and Ms . Pindling on TV they both look great unlike the judge who passes judgments on subjects she has not even read. The present FNM PM and the former FNM should find out their secret for looking so well. Banker no matter what you do you can not take that away from them* those FNM fellows look as if tractors rolled over them. So they make noise and tell lies because they have no vision to move the Bahamas forward

Mr: Christie it is said that the best revenge is living well, So just go ahead and live well and leave those who love to pull people down where they deserve to be in the gutter. in mind and body.

TalRussell 6 years, 9 months ago

Comrades! Of special observation note. This 'interview' { reads more like a statement } with with the former prime minister - conducted by a 'nameless stenographer like' reporter?

DDK 6 years, 9 months ago

Great observation!!!

ashley14 6 years, 9 months ago

I like his shirt. He looks like he lost his best friend.

TalRussell 6 years, 9 months ago

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by TalRussell

The_Oracle 6 years, 9 months ago

Seems he was clueless about what those "under him" were doing thru every orifice! Incredible tho think the pillaging was actually wanton! Not so surprising is the downcast schoolboy caught cheating look. If one thing is abundantly clear, remedial ethics training is definitely required going forward!

TalRussell 6 years, 9 months ago

Comrade The_Oracle, . Isn't one thing abundantly clear, remedial ethics training is definitely too late of a learning requirement if you done made your way into government? Shouldn't you brungs your ethics to the job - before you asks voters to hire you?

sheeprunner12 6 years, 9 months ago

Why did it take BJ's death for Perry to crawl out from under his rock since the election???????

I am still waiting to see how much money will be wasted on the State funerals that will be held for a number of the PLP Old Guard this year ......... BJ is the first, Perry seems to be next ...... ah well

ohdrap4 6 years, 9 months ago

he wished he could be dead now. he is envious of the nice things they say about his friend now.

licks2 6 years, 9 months ago

I did not think that I don't want to see or hear from him that much. . .i DON'T THINK IT IS HATE. . .MORE LIKE DISGUSTED WITH ARROGANT REFUSAL TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR HIS ACTIONS!!

I suggest that he remain off the scene for a long time. . .perhaps. . .just go to the USA and live with his family! Most Bahamians don't even want him in this country. . .STILL CAN'T SEE THE MESS HE MADE!!

MonkeeDoo 6 years, 9 months ago

USA ? When Bahamian people tief and lie do all manner of things to other people we seem to find laws that are appropriate to the offence and they spend time in Fox Hill Prison. It will be a sorry day in this country if that kind of money can just be given away to their friends family and lovers without any punishment. If the QC's can't figure out what charge to bring lets just get a law student with some guts. Maybe they want the people to take appropriate action against these thieves. But the longer they leave it there will be less and less money that can be recovered for the people.

sheeprunner12 6 years, 9 months ago

The FNM has a six months window to deal with this ...... If that closes and there is no accountability for the tens of millions of missing Treasury funds, unregulated crony contracts, unjustified consultants and unexplained election hirings ........ Minnis and his Cabinet will pay the same cost in time

sheeprunner12 6 years, 9 months ago

WHEN WILL WE HEAR FROM THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY .......... SIMON WILSON????

HE HAS A LOT TO ANSWER FOR AS HE WAS THE MOST SENIOR ECONOMIC ADVISOR TO THE CABINET ........... OR WAS HE KEPT ON THE OUTSIDE??????????

ohdrap4 6 years, 9 months ago

to “protect a black Bahamian woman.”

Protect her from paying bills?

Can you call my bank? I need protection.

The_Logician 6 years, 9 months ago

What about the black Bahamian men & children? Or the white Bahamians? I guess you gotta be black & female to get his help. Don't be living in Centreville that's for sure.

Baha10 6 years, 9 months ago

To insinuate that Black Bahamian Women do not pay their bills and accordingly require political intervention from the highest Office in the land is racist and discriminatory.