Former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham said the matter involving the reported bribing of a Bahamian official by a French company to win Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) contracts during his administration should be turned over to the police.
"The matter should be a matter for the police," Ingraham told The Nassau Guardian.
"That is what we did when bribes were paid to BEC board members before we came to office."
Ingraham's comments on the matter are his first public statements since the US Justice Department reported on December 22 that the French power company Alstom had agreed to pay $772 million to resolve allegations that it bribed high-ranking foreign government officials for lucrative projects.
Federal prosecutors said Alstom SA falsified its records and paid tens of millions of dollars in bribes for help in obtaining more than $4 billion in projects in countries including Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and The Bahamas.
US court papers do not name who the official is who was paid over $300,000 to help Alstom secure BEC contracts.
The official is identified only as a BEC board member.
Former BEC Board Chairman J. Barrie Farrington recently called on the government to relentlessly pursue the matter.
Asked whether he would support a government initiated probe, Ingraham only repeated that he would support the police investigating the matter.
It has been previously reported that the then board of BEC recommended that Hanjung of Korea be awarded the contract for the purchase of a BEC generator.
When the matter went before the Ingraham Cabinet, the recommendation was
rejected and the Cabinet instead chose Alstom.
Speaking to The Nassau Guardian on the matter, attorney Brian Moree, who was a member of the board, said, "I think the important point from the board is to remember that the board fully, I think unanimously, voted in favor of awarding the contract to the South Korean company.
"And then that decision of the board was not implemented and another decision was made. So I think from the point of view of the board, it was a little surprising at the time, but that is my recollection of what occurred."
Moree said board members were very surprised by the decision.
He confirmed that several of them considered resigning as a result.
Only Vincent D'Aguilar, now deceased, resigned. D'Aguilar was an electrical engineer by profession and formally worked for BEC.
It remains unclear why the Cabinet rejected the board's recommendation.
Former Deputy Prime Minister Frank Watson, who was minister responsible for utilities at the time, said the Inter-American Development Bank approved the Alstom bid.
He said it would be appropriate for the current or former prime minister to say why the Ingraham cabinet rejected the Korean company's bid.
Moree said he also supports the matter being fully investigated.
"I think that any allegation of corruption or bribery would adversely affect The Bahamas, and as Bahamians we must always be concerned about that," he said.
"I think we have to be committed to achieving higher levels of good governance in our country and transparency in all national matters, and so I think like all other Bahamians that we (former members of the board) are concerned about it."
Asked what message a probe would send, Moree said, "I think that's the decision that the authorities must make. All I can say is along the same lines as other people have said. It's [something] now that has to be looked into and from the point of view of The Bahamas, we have to try to maintain our integrity and I assume that the authorities would take whatever action they deem to be appropriate."
Attorney General Allyson Maynard Gibson has requested that US authorities turn over information on the bribery matter to Bahamian officials.

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