The Tribune

By Fay Simmons

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

The Opposition’s leader yesterday challenged the “complicated arrangement” that has resulted in the Government engaging two contractors for the Eight Mile Rock administration complex.

Michael Pintard argued that this has increased the project’s costs from $22m to $30m, thus further burdening Bahamian taxpayers. He said: “Over the course of the next four weeks, they will celebrate some improvements that they have made to the administration centre.

“But they will not tell you that one of the problems with the administration centre, the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) gave a contract to two separate contractors for the same building. The original contract with this complicated arrangement that did not work was constructed by the PLP. A contract that should have been somewhere in the vicinity of $22m mushrooms to $30m and, we believe, $30-plus million.”

Mr Pintard alleged an arrangement was initially made to allow both contractors to benefit from the project, but due to them working at different speeds and not collaborating it became a legal matter.

He said: “Apparently, they sought to divide the scope of work so that both of them can work on the project. Well, there were some inherent problems with that approach. First of all, both contractors work at separate pace. Secondly, there wasn’t a tremendous amount of co-operation between the contractors. And, of course, it became a legal matter.

“So when they come back beating up their chests, as governments tend to do, what governments ought to do, and in this case, the Progressive Liberal Party government should tell the full story about the complicated arrangement that they made that resulted in the delays that occurred.”

Mr Pintard also raised issuea with the Government having members of the executive sit on the Public Accounts Committee. He accused the Davis administration of not being “transparent” or “accountable”.

He said: “There is a separation of powers. We do not believe it is appropriate to have two parliamentary secretaries sit on the Public Accounts Committee. It is the equivalent of those persons who are making the decisions investigating themselves. And it is wrong.

“I mean, we know that this government is not transparent. It’s not accountable. But it would be a dereliction of duty for us not to raise the concern with the public that the Government is not following the very rules that it has called for in the past.”