Tourism probe intensifies

Mon, Jun 18th 2012, 11:57 AM

The Office of the Prime Minister has taken over an investigation relating to a lucrative tourism marketing contract that was awarded by and eventually canceled by the previous administration, according to Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe.
Wilchcombe said the government has also engaged the services of an accounting firm to look into the matter.
The foreign company that got the marketing contract was allegedly brought to the Ministry of Tourism by then Minister of Tourism Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, according to documents from the Ministry of Tourism.
According to the documents previously made public by The Nassau Guardian, Vanderpool-Wallace had become locked in a war with the most senior officials of the Ministry of Tourism over the contract.

The documents show that he ignored their advice to terminate the contract even though those senior officials determined that taxpayers were not getting value for money.
In the final days of the Ingraham administration, the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) termed the matter a scandal and had questioned why then Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham had not fired Vanderpool-Wallace from his Cabinet.
The ministry entered into the marketing contract with the American company in August 2010. The contract called for the ministry to pay the firm $1.65 million between September 2010 and June 2013.
The documents confirm that the company was already paid $825,000, plus out of pocket expenses, before the contract was finally terminated several weeks before the general election on the order of the Cabinet secretary.
"The investigation is under way. It's actually being handled from the Office of the Prime Minister. An accounting firm has been brought in to do it and some senior members [of the] Ministry of Finance who were a part of the government previously are also involved," Wilchcombe told The Nassau Guardian.
"We're trying to make sure that we have a forensic analysis of what took place and then in a couple of weeks we'll be able to talk about it. We're going through it meticulously to make sure we are aware of everything that took place and the reasons, of course.
"We have to pursue it very [carefully] because of course we're concerned that we're not just going to be saying something or doing something... We have to look at it very carefully; we have to understand what took place and so we're allowing the professionals to do an analysis and bring it back to us and we'll have to make it public."
Strained relations with the former minister and his staff became evident after Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism Hyacinth Pratt became suspicious about whether the company would be able to live up to its end of the agreement.
The documents show that Vanderpool-Wallace met with the permanent secretary and the director general of tourism to discuss the matter of rescindment.
The minister at the time reportedly advised that the marketing firm be given a hearing, as it appeared the permanent secretary had "a vendetta" against the company.
Vanderpool-Wallace had also accused his director general of trying to "neutralize my attempt to install proper management of our marketing resources."

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian

 Sponsored Ads