Minister of financial services, trade and industry and immigration Brent Symonette and Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis.
Reader poll
Do you think the General Post Office should be moved to the Town Centre Mall?
- Yes
- No
225 total votes.
By KHRISNA RUSSELL
Deputy Chief Reporter
krussell@tribunemedia.net
PRIME Minister Dr Hubert Minnis does not appear to be concerned about losing political capital over his administration’s decision to enter into a five-year lease agreement with owners of Town Centre Mall, one of them a sitting Cabinet minister, to house the General Post Office, telling reporters yesterday he is doing “what is right”.
Defending the decision, the prime minister said the process will be transparent and debated in the House of Assembly.
Part of this transparency, he said, will feature a declaration of interests from Brent Symonette, minister of financial services, trade and industry and immigration, who is part owner of Town Centre Mall.
But the Progressive Liberal Party has branded the move as a “shameful, naked conflict of interest that no parliamentary or constitutional device or slight of hand will disguise.” PLP Chairman Fred Mitchell rejected the decision, adding the opposition party would not support the move.
Mr Symonette was not present in the House of Assembly yesterday. However, he told The Tribune on Tuesday he knew nothing about the proposed rental of the property. Mr Symonette said he was in Miami, Florida attending a conference.
‘Transparency’
“I think it’s complete transparency and I don’t want to get into any details because they are going to debate it, but I think it’s complete transparency and if you have done due diligence, searched around, the Bahamian public have been without an adequate post office now in excess of three years the matter must be resolved,” Dr Minnis told reporters yesterday. He spoke moments after the resolution to approve the lease was read into the record of the House.
The government plans to begin debate on it next Wednesday.
Asked by this newspaper if the government did not have another option, Dr Minnis said: “I don’t want to get into details because what’s going to happen is more details will come out during the debate, but what you will find out is that at a particular point in time even the PLP had selected the facility and they had also already drawn the plans.
“I believe in transparency,” he added. “I believe in doing what is right and what I feel is right. I believe in improving the quality of life for the Bahamian people. How much longer do you want them to have no access to a post office? How much longer do you want them to work in inadequate facilities and inadequate conditions?”
When asked about concerns of losing political capital, he said: “It’s going to the Bahamian public. The Bahamian public will see the facts.
“Let me ask you a simple question. If Bill Gates was a Bahamian Microsoft with the best possible computers for your country in terms of e-Bahamas and internet systems, and Bill Gates was also a member of Parliament, would you deny the country the use of Microsoft because he’s a member of Parliament when he declares, and you know (he is) the best in taking you to first world status?”
Concern
Mr Mitchell yesterday argued that the Minnis administration sought to reinvent the wheel over the post office’s woes, when the PLP had already done all of the heavy lifting before leaving office.
He raised questions about the rate of $12 per square foot at which the government will lease portions of the mall. He said what has been deemed generous and concessionary may not really be. The resolution notes the landlord will make the facility suitable for operations.
Mr Mitchell said what this really means is that the owners will come out ahead, having rented a property of depreciated value to be turned into an appreciating asset. This he called “arranging a benefit” for one of its Cabinet ministers. Mr Mitchell also noted a previous controversy ensnaring Dr Minnis, whose company Leechez Investments Limited, which owns Stat Care, had been granted a rental lease in 2005 by the Christie administration. That lease continued while Dr Minnis was minister of health in the Ingraham administration, before ending last year. Dr Minnis has always maintained he declared his interest.
The Christie administration had looked at relocating the General Post Office to the Town Centre Mall during its last term, but ultimately decided to enter into a public-private partnership (PPP) to construct a new building at the Independence Drive Shopping Centre opposite the mall instead. Tribune Business previously reported that project was placed on hold following traffic flow-related complaints from local residents and concerns over whether proper due diligence had been conducted.
After the Minnis administration assumed office, officials announced it had acquired the old Phil’s Food Services building on Gladstone Road to house the General Post Office. But last month, Transport Minister Renward Wells revealed the government had gone back to the drawing board on plans to relocate the facility.
“The traffic studies, engineering reports, social impact studies, traffic pattern studies had all been completed,” Mr Mitchell noted in a statement. “The PLP decided to assist a young Bahamian, not born in one of the selected families, with a public private partnership (PPP) and preceded to advance the plans in the old Independence Shopping Centre.
“The FNM came along believing their own propaganda and cancelled that project, with significant costs to the public. They announced with great fanfare they were moving to Gladstone Road without checking the facts. That proved to be a colossal error.
“Without so much as a ‘by your leave’ they now announce this resolution, the effect of which is to abandon all that has already been done, waste all the money already spent, with a poorly hatched, cooked up scheme to fix up one of their brothers. It is embarrassing. It is shameful.”
He also slammed the resolution as being “poorly drafted with unnecessary verbiage.”
The resolution seems to deviate from the usual format for this kind of parliamentary document. It noted that the General Post Office building on East Hill Street has been condemned as being structurally unsound and has suffered from periodic, deep-rooted mould infestation and other harmful environment pathogens.
It further noted plans to relocate the facility to a new building at the Independence Shopping Centre were met with “resounding objections and rejection” by residents of the surrounding communities.
It stated the government had acquired the old Phil’s Food Services building on Gladstone Road, but “only recently discovered that the latent (hidden) structural defects and other technical issues would require a massive expenditure of taxpayer dollars in conducting extensive renovations to the entire building which would take at least a year or more” to complete.
The resolution acknowledged a sitting Cabinet minister is one of the owners of Town Centre Mall “who did not take part in the discussions leading to the decision to accept the offer to lease portions of the building, which will be made suitable for the operations of the General Post Office at the expense of the landlord,” adding Mr Symonette has nonetheless declared his interest.
The mall will be rented at a “commercially concessionary rate” of $12 per square foot “far below the going commercial rates” on New Providence, it noted.
Comments
TalRussell 5 years, 6 months ago
May I suggest to Comrade BahamaPundit's yesterday post these hereto Tribune blog pages that the leasing TC Mall by government be such a bad financial move,,,,,, That Comrade BahamaPundit should do more than just vowing call this potential for corruption based on information at hand.......should go much further and be calling up Her Excellency Marguerite, requesting she add this to her royal entries on Minnis and KP regime. God save the Queen. God keeps Her Excellency "The Peoples" Marguerite residing atop Mount Fitzwillam.
{ Why make this up where Minnis and KP -be taking we beloved colony islands? }.
TheMadHatter 5 years, 6 months ago
“Without so much as a ‘by your leave’ they now announce this resolution, the effect of which is to abandon all that has already been done, ..."
Poor Mr. Mitchell. What a shame he didn't push to make an elected Senate with elections to take place 30 months after the General Election. This he could have done while he was in power.
Instead he left us to live under a 5 year dictatorship where our only recourse is to wait until 2022.
He doesn't like kissing the King's ring - but when his buddy is King he just shines it up. No change. Now he can live under the status quo with the rest of us. Good for him.
Naughtydread 5 years, 6 months ago
http://www.tribune242.com/news/2017/a...">TRIBUNE EXCLUSIVE: Fitzgerald sought millions from Baha Mar
John 5 years, 6 months ago
Three points: One Minnis must now explain what makes Town Center Mall so much better than The Independence Shopping Center that was under preparation when he came to office and was stopped dead in the water. Two: Renward Wells assertion that the people can no longer do without a post office is moot and a demonstration of the political selfishness of this government. This was the issue when the FNM came to office. The office staff were suffering from deplorable working conditions and the general population was without or was with limited post offices services. Renward sounds like a retard even saying this. His government delayed and held back in terms of progress and development.the relocation of the post office, strictly on terms of politics and to grant the lease to one of their own (greedy as he may be. In fact has any other politician benefited financially and otherwise,more from being in government, than he? ). And finally so to Minnis is ok with the policy that, should he lose the next elections, the new government comes in and terminated contracts in effect, work in progress and plans on the table, strictly on the terms of politics...you can't be serious. but you are!
licks2 5 years, 6 months ago
WHY TRY TO EXPLAIN ANYTHING TO YOU. . .it will be like throwing pearls into the swine's pen. . .you will trample the jewels and then turn right back to talking nonsense!! Just you carry on with your BASED THINKING!! Even doc who you call a JA have more head than you!!
bogart 5 years, 6 months ago
The nation finds itself at the jumcture where there is crises need for a working post office.....to handle needs of large business.financial, govt...foreign outside, inside, legal offices,...private...public...peoples to deal wit critical items...Registerdd mails.... Present taxpayers paying salaries for govt employees to works only half days in challenging conditions..health issues...... Given da dire situation....da gubbermint should be dealing Not.....wid Minister Symonette....but wid a vehicle.running the Mall until Minister is no longer a Minister...indepemdent of him....line drawn between him...an da govt.. Given the critical situation of govt salaried employees putting da pore taxpaying citizens in....like wasting buying Phils building come to find out plenty money to fix....persons who watch present PostOffice run right in da ground endangeting staff crippling BAHAMALANDs mailing system internally and externally wid the world.....financially hindering users.....must BE PUNISHED...FIRED....Slackness at this level cannot be excused..!!!!....dey just as bad as the others wasting hundreds of millions of pore taxpayers mondy.propping up and still propping up an more propping up....select govt...agencies....wasting money buying hill in Eleuthera and .den digging up half of it ....an...an....an...nobody punished....!!!!
Well_mudda_take_sic 5 years, 6 months ago
LMAO. Wait until the Bahamian public finds out that the space to be leased for the GPO has been sitting vacant for years, mainly because the property is in such a run down state. The rent of $12 per square foot is but the tip of the iceberg because added to this base rent will be an allocation (also on a per square foot basis) of the outrageously high ongoing maintenance costs for this very aged building. You can be rest assured the Symonette family is not going to spend much money (if any) fixing up the property for the GPO when they know they can get away with passing huge ongoing maintenance costs on to the backs of Bahamian taxpayers. And if Minnis is willing to so lavishly butter Brent's already very large and handsomely buttered loaf of bread in this way, one can only wonder what he must be doing for his other much hungrier cabinet ministers, cronies and friends who are 'breadless' by comparison, not to mention himself. Brent can't help but smile all the way to the bank, especially now that his father was posthumously declared and exalted by Minnis as a National Hero.
licks2 5 years, 6 months ago
People just look the FNM is going to win government again by default!! The PLP shot to hell as a viable party with fred and brave at the helm. . .and THESE DNAs are just political nincompoops . . . silly as the day goes by. . .brainless it seems!!
ohdrap4 5 years, 6 months ago
Bill Gates would not stoop to being a member of any parliament.
John 5 years, 6 months ago
The malls were constructed in response to a speech by then Prime Minister, Sir Lyndon Pindling, that the time has come to end the monopoly the Bay Street Boys had on commerce in the country. And it was his government’s intention to create opportunities for other Bahamians in the Bay Street area. And the Bay Street Boys responded by coming over the hill and constructing malls in areas where only small, (yes black) businesses existed. And not only that, the mall operators ensured that ‘certain ‘ tenants renting space in the mall were not successful. In the case of Town Center the owners went into direct competition with their tenants, making it impossible for them to turn a profit and having to eventually close shop. So now the mall has become a barely occupied shell. So has Bay Street. And the owners have been calling out to government to throw them a lifeline. Not because they need financial assistance, per se, but in order for the mall to be sustainable the numbers of persons going there must increase. Retail stores alone cannot do this, especially now since local retailers have learned to ‘Beware Town Center Mall.’ So yes Symnonette as calling out to government to throw Town Center a life line. But what about the hundreds of smaller Bahamians who are struggling in this depressed and brutal economy? What about them? The difference between them and Symnonette is he is trying to save his mall while they are trying to put bread on the table. Forget the lights being off and other bills not being paid, for them it’s a matter of survival. For them and their families. So go ahead and throw out the lifeline to Town Center Mall. But what you gonna do for the smaller, lest fortunate, long suffering Bahamians? Many of whom their businesses it was Town Center’s Mall intent to destroy.
Gotoutintime 5 years, 6 months ago
To the Victors go the Spoils!
sheeprunner12 5 years, 6 months ago
People should be asking ......... what industry in this country will not present many of those Cabinet millionaires with a conflict of interest??????? ........... That's a naked fact as well.
At least, the FNMs are less disingenuous and shameless about robbing the Treasury.
bogart 5 years, 6 months ago
WHAT SHOULD BE HAPPENING IS DAT ERRY POLITICIAN IN DIS LIL ISLAND.....SHOULD PUT ASSETS IN BLIND TRUST...run widdout dem....or even Recocable Trust....an dere bisinesses run without them so as to draw line conflicts.....besides they did say they is the servant of da peoples....!!L
sheeprunner12 5 years, 6 months ago
Do you think Brent runs TCM and collects rents and fees?????? .......... Its just a part of his real estate holdings.
VDSheep 5 years, 6 months ago
Here’s the solution – put the post office in the parliament building ‘ and place the parliament in town centre mall
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