Former PHA chair: We could not find another building

Mon, Aug 24th 2015, 01:36 AM

As allegations mount that Opposition Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis was involved in a conflict of interest when his company continued renting its building to the Public Hospitals Authority (PHA) while he sat in Cabinet, former PHA Chairperson Veta Brown said Minnis made a “genuine effort” to end the arrangement when he became a member of the government and the PHA made the same effort to find another facility.

Minnis has said then Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham asked him to stop renting to the PHA. He said he then told the PHA to end the arrangement. Brown served on the PHA board between 2007 and 2012.

“It was very much a concern of the PHA and it was very much a concern of the minister,” Brown told The Nassau Guardian in an interview.

“He was very adamant that we should try to find another property.

“Extensive searches were done during my tenure to find alternative, suitable accommodations, and it was very, very challenging and very, very difficult.

“And that is why it was continued. I am only assuming that subsequent people had similar challenges as well.

“I know that several efforts were made to find suitable accommodations, and to my recollection, we had difficulties. We looked at several properties.

“It was not only that property, but we were also looking at the same time for properties to have more substantive accommodations for the community mental health services that we were running in Market Street.”

Though Minnis said in his 2007 declaration he had no contract with the government, he said on Wednesday night that he advised the PHA to stop renting from his company, but he said the PHA continued to rent the Stat Care building on a month-to-month basis while it was looking for another facility to rent. Minnis is the beneficial owner of Leechez Investments Limited, which owns Stat Care. Minnis said on Thursday that his company had a contract with the government and not him.

Though the PHA recognized the importance of locating another facility, another prime concern was maintaining health services, Brown said. “In the interim, efforts were made to secure some additional buildings which we felt might be potential facilities that we could repair as we tried to move,” she said.

“We were, during that period, looking at a number of services.

“The concern about the minister’s financial benefits was certainly not a particular [concern]. Our concern was the conflict that he had and how we can get out of that conflict.

“That was the primary concern, but the challenge that we had was finding the services for the developmental center.

“We were not about enriching the minister. Our concern was about delivering an appropriate service.”

Pressed on why the PHA was unable to find another facility in five years, Brown said, “I think the timeline depends on the availability of the facility. I have been out of the system now for the last three years, so I can only assume that the process continued as far as availability.”

Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Chairman Bradley Roberts, who has led the conflict charge against Minnis, has called on him to resign as opposition leader and as a member of Parliament for “misleading the House of Assembly and the public over his conflict of interest”.

Leechez signed a two-year lease with the PHA in May 2005. The lease was in the amount of $180,000. Hubert Ingraham Chambers is named as the attorney on the 2005 lease. The $7,500 monthly payments to Minnis’ company continued while he was minister. Minnis continued to defend himself against Roberts’ claims on Thursday.

“This is nothing more than detractors far and wide seeking to besmirch my character,” he said.

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