New Category : Disputes

DRA audit taking longer than expected, Storr says

Thu, May 5th 2022, 08:50 AM

Disaster Reconstruction Authority (DRA) Executive Chairman Alex Storr said yesterday that the long-overdue 2020 and 2021 audited financials have been taking longer than anticipated because of poor record-keeping during that period.

Storr said the cost of the audited 2020 financials is significantly over budget as a result.

“They have been hampered by poor record-keeping and totally improper accounting practices and the accountants found that they had to do a lot of work that should have been done in-house to make sure that they were presented with proper figures,” he said in an interview with The Nassau Guardian.

“So, the audit is severely over budget as well because of the extra work the auditors had to do, but the first audit should be completed shortly as well, so that we can submit that.”

He added, “The price for the original audit was $30,000 and I would tell you that we are maybe more than five times over that amount.”

Storr clarified that the amount applied only to the 2020 audited financials and does not take into account the cost of the 2021 audited financials.

While the law mandates that the DRA provide audited accounts within three months after the end of each financial year, no audited accounts of the DRA have been tabled since its inception in December 2019.

Section 11(3) of the Disaster Reconstruction Authority Act states that three months after the end of each financial year, the authority shall submit to the minister a copy of its audited accounts, together with a copy of any report made by the auditor.

As it relates to the unaudited 2020 financial statements, which were tabled in the House of Assembly in March 2021, Storr said they were “inaccurate”.

“Based on what the auditors are finding out, I would say that they are far from accurate,” he said.

Following his claims that the DRA was improperly managed under the Minnis administration, in February, Storr said a forensic audit would be conducted into the operations of the agency.

Asked yesterday about a timeline on when the audit will be completed, Storr said he could not say for certain.

“The audit is still ongoing,” he said.

“We spoke with the auditors just a few days ago to get an update and they are coming along.

“It’s just the problem is that as they ran into some issues, they decided to take a deeper dive into them or more information came up and they looked after other things.

“And so, it caused a few delays, but it’s just because they are trying to be as thorough as possible.”

'Apology was promised to Osborne'

Wed, Apr 27th 2022, 09:31 AM

FORMER Works Minister Desmond Bannister allegedly promised to publicly apologise for the "wrong information" he gave about Darnell Osborne, but never did so, a former Bahamas Power and Light consultant claims in a new witness statement.

The statement of C McMahon Campbell, a former BPL public relations consultant, comes as lawyers prepare for trial after Mrs Osborne, Nick Dean and Nicola Thompson, former BPL board members, sued the government for wrongful dismissal, misfeasance and slander.

In her witness statement last week, Mrs Osborne claimed Mr Bannister’s allegations about her caused distress and significant damage to her professional reputation.

BPL’s former board disintegrated into two factions over several issues in 2018, including the Shell North America deal, hiring practices, travel practices of senior executives and the requirements of the executive director role.

Mrs Osborne’s faction was forced off the board. After she criticised Mr Bannister and accused the Minnis administration of interference, Mr Bannister claimed he intervened to stop BPL from paying her personal bills, including make-up services and the installation of a home security system. Later, it was revealed that the make-up services were for a BPL photoshoot and that other top BPL officials encouraged Mrs Osborne to set up a home security system after another board member mentioned a security incident at his home.

Mr Campbell, in his witness statement, claims he met Mr Bannister and the permanent secretary to discuss the allegations about Mrs Osborne.

“In that meeting,” he says, “I disclosed a timesheet with the names of female employees of BPL that ‘got their make-up done’ for a BPL public relations photoshoot.

“I showed Minister Bannister where Darnell’s name appeared at the bottom of the group one roster with a total of about 31 women, including Darnell. The total invoice for the makeup work for the 31 women was $1,500 which was paid by BPL.

“I also explained to Minister Bannister that the $750 that he was floating around as a personal makeup expense of Darnell belonged to the women in group two which did not include Darnell. I also explained that BPL did not pay $750 for the makeup work for group two and that the $750 expense for the makeup for group two was paid from my salary.”

Mr Campbell’s statement continued: “Minister Bannister acknowledged to me that he was given wrong information, and he promised to ‘apologise publicly.’ I suggested that Minister Bannister avoid ‘all the back and forth and apologise on Saturday so that the matter with Osborne and the other BPL board members would go away quickly in the news cycle.’ I promised to assist him. Minister Bannister told me he would apologise at the appropriate time. On the next occasion that I saw Minister Bannister on television he did not apologise as he promised, but said that he was ‘told’ to stay silent on this matter.”

Former Bahamas Electrical Workers Union (BEWU) President Paul Maynard has also given a witness statement in the case.

Mr Maynard claims that in April 2018, Mr Bannister told him he was considering removing three board members because the “board wasn’t getting along.” Mr Maynard claims he told him doing this would be difficult because the board “was an autonomous board by an Act of Parliament and the members once appointed had to resign in order to be removed before the agreed term was done.”

Mr Maynard’s statement noted: “More than a week later I again talked to Minister Bannister, he informed me that Darnell was one of the board members who the Cabinet wanted to replace. Again, I expressed my disappointment with this situation as the chairman did not deserve to be dismissed especially in favour of Whitney Heastie. In addition, Mrs Osborne was responsible for critical financial funding for the FNM. Although I’m PLP, this was a concern for me as, in my opinion, it was vicious and uncalled for.

“The prime minister, Dr Minnis, also spoke to me on at least two occasions and I conveyed my extreme disappointment with the situation, and I opined at the time to the prime minister that this wasn’t going to end well for the FNM government.”

When contacted yesterday about the allegations, Mr Bannister told The Tribune he had “not seen” any of the witness statements and could not comment on them in any event “since the matter is subjudice”.

“Accordingly, I am prohibited from publicly providing my views on the evidence,” Mr Bannister said.

He added: “The plaintiffs have withdrawn their action against me so I am no longer a defendant, but I will still be a witness, and my witness statement will be for use in the court where the action will be litigated, not in the media.”

Union: Heastie departure from role at BPL was 'late coming'

Mon, Apr 25th 2022, 01:00 PM

THE president of the union representing staff at Bahamas Power and Light said he thinks the recent resignations of BPL CEO Whitney Heastie and Director of Human Resources Evis Missick had been "a bit late coming," adding workers were "disrespected" for too long.

Bahamas Electrical Workers Union President Kyle Wilson said for more than two years, the union had been strongly agitating for there to be a systematic change in the executive level or directorship level of the company, especially human resources.

“We felt as if the company was not operating in the true spirit of industrial harmony,” he said in an interview on Friday.

“There was disrespect to the union, disrespect to the workers, disrespect to our industrial agreement, and just operating just unilaterally as if a union didn’t exist. This would’ve led to many publicised demonstrations, many public industrial actions, and sick outs from the union. The atmosphere at BPL was one of, I mean frustration, anger from the workers. A lot of people felt as if they were in Alcatraz almost when they came to work daily. The feeling now is one of elation. It’s one of a new day. Persons feel a sense of relief and you know it gives hope that tomorrow will be a better day in the company,” he said.

Last Thursday, BPL announced that its board of directors received resignation letters from Mr Heastie and Mr Missick effective April 21. The board accepted the resignations.

“I think the new chairman is making the correct decisions on behalf of not just the workers but the Bahamian people because we believe that decisions that were made by the executives were not in keeping with the best decisions that were before the Bahamian people in terms of reliable sustainable energy. . .If we look at the past weekend during the holiday there’s a lot of power outages to the frustration of the Bahamian people and these are direct results of poor management,” Mr Wilson also said.

Mr Wilson said the union wants the government and BPL to review the Wartsila deal as “millions of dollars” were spent to give a foreign company an opportunity to produce power in The Bahamas. In 2019, BPL invested about $95m in acquiring seven new generation turbines from Wartsila, in addition to building infrastructure at Clifton Pier to house them.

“To me it’s a failure in my opinion because there’ve been lots of issues getting the plan up to standard, getting up to full running capacity, and there have been many outages as a result of that particular deal,” Mr Wilson said. “So the average Bahamian person doesn’t know that there are independent power producers. They think it’s just BPL, but these are (where) some of the main issues or problems of infrequency in terms of reliability comes from.

“So, yes, the union would have been happy that those persons would have resigned because it allows the company to bring in persons who are worker friendly, who are union friendly and not to say ‘hey, we’re gonna give the union whatever we gotta ask for or the company is gonna be held hostage by the union’. No, what we want is for industrial goodwill for the labour laws of the country and the rights of the worker to be respected first and foremost. What we want is for the union to be made knowledgeable and a part of these deals that go on.”

On Friday, Tribune Business reported that Free National Movement Leader Michael Pintard branded Mr Heastie’s resignation as “worrisome” and also raised misgivings about growing suggestions that Shevonn Cambridge, the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority’s (URCA) head of electricity supervision, was viewed as the leading candidate to replace him.

Asked about whether Mr Cambridge was a potential good fit, Mr Wilson replied: “Thus far, I think the chairman is making the right decisions to move the company forward. I can’t speak to that per say, but what I can say about Mr Cambridge is that he is a career BPL trained employee. He came up through the training programmes in BPL and he worked his way up the ladder properly. So Mr Cambridge knows the company by the back of his hand as he worked in the field and he’s worked into various different parts of the company.”

He also said: “If they feel as if he is somebody who can help steer the ship back to prosperity, to reliability, I have no problem with Mr Cambridge being one of the people that’s brought in. Mr Cambridge is currently, I think, one of the heads of URCA and...so he’s something that the country can use. I do not want to see us being foreign dependent in terms of leadership and we have young dynamic Bahamians, such as Mr Cambridge, who has worked in big US companies… and has brought experiences back to The Bahamas and is fully trained by BPL and, so, why not? If not, why not and he is someone who should be looked at to be honest with you.”

Mr Wilson added: “If it’s to replace Mr Heastie or to be a dynamic part of going forward, the union has no objection in that regard. There’s no objection from the union to have someone of the calibre of Mr Shevonn Cambridge brought back into BPL in the interim to make the changes that are necessary.”

Minnis heckled outside House

Thu, Mar 17th 2022, 03:26 PM

Davis govt also gave out no-bid contract

Wed, Feb 23rd 2022, 08:58 AM

Govt broke law 

Thu, Feb 17th 2022, 08:57 AM

'I've nothing to fear from DRA auditors'

Fri, Feb 11th 2022, 09:21 AM

Former DPM defends handling of storm debris

Fri, Feb 11th 2022, 09:16 AM

Former East Grand Bahama MP Peter Turnquest said yesterday the statement made a day earlier by Disaster Construction Authority (DRA) Chairman Alex Storr that hurricane debris post-Dorian had not been sorted, but just dumped, was simply not true because he witnessed with his own eyes that sorting had in fact been done.

“In my observation of the three sites that were set up to stage the debris before it was moved on to its final disposal site, all three sites were very well organized, very well laid out and materials were in fact separated … that is, the white waste, the vegetation, the other solid waste as well as the vehicles,” said Turnquest, who is also the former deputy prime minister and minister of finance.

“They were all very neatly done. I know that there was a decommissioning of one of the sites in particular and maybe that’s what the chairman is looking at, what is left at that site and making some assumptions. But again, from what I know and what I have seen with my own eyes, those sites are very well laid out, so I was a little confused by [his statement].”

While claiming on Wednesday that much more money was paid out for storm clean up work on Grand Bahama than on Abaco, although much less work was done, Storr told The Nassau Guardian, “… The debris seems to have simply been dumped on a vacant lot. There was no type of sorting. On Abaco, there is at least some type of sorting. Even at the worst sites, I can see that some attempts were being made to sort.”

Storr made the comment after visiting the East Grand Bahama sites this week. 

Two of the sites were managed byTycoon Waste Management Ltd., whose principal, Ed Curling, also insisted that sorting work was done.

Curling’s contract with the DRA came to an end in September 2020 after the DRA decided to close the debris management sties in East Grand Bahama.

The contract concerns raised this week by Storr cast a spotlight on the work of the DRA and brought its operations under scrutiny.

Storr claimed that various work had not been completed at a satisfactory level — a claim Curling shot down.

While he would not speak to whether he thought the Bahamian people were getting value for money from the various companies the Minnis administration and the DRA engaged after Hurricane Dorian, Turnquest yesterday acknowledged that many East Grand Bahama residents were left frustrated, and suggested the DRA ought to have focused more on rebuilding efforts.

“When you’ve lost everything, obviously it was a very difficult situation and the help that you hoped would come may not come in the form or the speed that you want and so there was tremendous frustration all around,” he said.

“I know that persons were helped to the extent that the parameters were set by the DRA and the government as to the maximum amounts that people could be helped with. Some people, obviously, will require more to get themselves back, if they’ve had a complete loss, for instance.

“And so, people will be disappointed that they didn’t get more to put themselves back into the shape that they were in before, but I think it would be a mistake to say that people weren’t helped, that assessments weren’t done and people categorized accordingly.

“There’s always room for improvement as lessons are learnt from the disasters. Certainly there were lessons learnt from Matthew and also with Joaquin, and so, I’m sure there will be lessons learnt from this disaster.”

Turnquest added, “… I believe that we probably could have allocated more toward to the rebuilding of people’s lives in terms of being so concerned in particular about the debris removal. But again, I leave that to the professionals, [including] the environmentalists who were very much involved in the management of those sites and determining what needed to be done to remediate the various communities.”

The DRA’s Small Home Repair Programme made up to $10,000 available to qualified homeowners for the purchase of materials and labor necessary to repair damaged homes.

Asked specifically whether there was value for money given that tens of millions of dollars was paid out to contractors for debris processing and other work after the storm, the former finance minister, who resigned from the Minnis Cabinet in November 2020, responded that the assessment would need to be made by the various ministries involved and by the DRA.

'Red flags' raised on recovery work

Thu, Feb 10th 2022, 09:18 AM

Storm contracts in question

Thu, Feb 10th 2022, 09:00 AM

Smith sues govt

Mon, Feb 7th 2022, 09:36 AM