The company owned partially by former Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Minister Darrell Rolle which received a contract for the female dormitory at the Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI) was incorporated on April 30, 2013, a company search has revealed. That means the company -- Andarco Construction Ltd. -- was incorporated just in time to land a BAMSI contract.
The timing of the company's incorporation might just be a coincidence, and its formation is certainly not illegal, but this revelation again underscores the need for the government of Prime Minister Perry Christie to be transparent and make public all contracts connected to BAMSI, which is based in North Andros.
In light of cronyism claims leveled by Fort Charlotte MP Dr. Andre Rollins on the floor of the House of Assembly on February 3, we decided to conduct the company search to find out exactly who the owners of the company are. To be clear, learning who the owners are is not enough to provide a conclusion that the principals of the company received special consideration.
In an interview with National Review last week, Rolle strongly denied that his company received the contract due to his political connections.
"I've never been involved in cronyism," said Rolle, a former MP for North Andros.
Rolle also acknowledged that his law firm formed the company. This was confirmed by the company search. Andarco's present registered office is Darrell Rolle and Co. on Dowdeswell Street. There are 5,000 shares in the company. The amount of capital is $5,000. There are four members of the company: Samuel Greene, who holds 1,500 shares; D. Elliott Rolle and Shakira Rolle, who jointly hold 1,750 shares; and Javon Rolle, who holds 1,750 shares.
Greene is the company's president and director. Darrell Rolle is its secretary and director. Javon Rolle is its treasurer and director, and Yvette Bain is an assistant secretary. Darrell Rolle has told us he could not remember the value of the BAMSI contract, but he said he thinks it is in the neighborhood of $2.6 million.
When he made his charge in Parliament, Rollins suggested that such contracts are "padded" because they have to then be subcontracted. No government minister challenged Rollins on the floor of the House that day. But when we asked Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Works Philip Brave Davis about the matter last week, he insisted the government received value for money from the contract to Andarco. He said the contractor, Javon Rolle, "formed a partnership and that is the person with whom my team, my engineers, my quantity surveyors were involved".
In light of the Christie administration's lack of transparency and the total screw up involving the contract awarded to PLP Stalwart Councilor Audley Hanna for the BAMSI male dormitory, cronyism claims are likely to haunt the government in respect of this matter.
The male dormitory was destroyed by fire on January 15, 2015.
PLP supporters
PLPs of course are Bahamians and have every right to be awarded contracts. But the government has an obligation to demonstrate that it is handling these matters transparently.
Back in 2015, the government was under fire after it was revealed that the contract awarded to Hanna did not have the necessary all-risk insurance. That means taxpayers were left holding the bag to the tune of millions of dollars after the dorm burned down.
Amid criticisms that the Christie administration only issued contracts for BAMSI to "PLP cronies", Prime Minister Perry Christie said while he was not sure who received the contracts, he hopes the majority of contractors are PLP supporters. Christie was responding to a claim by Democratic National Alliance (DNA) Leader Branville McCartney that, "Contracts were given based on the fact that they were PLP supporters".
McCartney said at the time, "We have seen that these contracts have been allowed to be given without the proper accounting, transparency and bidding."
When confronted with McCartney's claims, Christie said the contracts were given to contractors in North Andros, in a bid to impact the island's economy.
"The contract works that were going on down there by and large were intended to be given to people who live in that community," the prime minister said. "Now, whether all of them are PLPs, I mean I hope some of them are. I hope the majority of them are because the former government did a remarkable job in being able to empower FNM contractors."
It was an incredible statement from Christie, who did not help the widespread perception that his administration was busy fixing up its own.
In light of the cronyism claims made on the floor of the House of Assembly, the government should fully disclose all the BAMSI contracts. But it continues to arrogantly scoff at such demands.
Davis told reporters last week that the same people who advised the previous administration on the award of contracts are the people who advised on the award of the BAMSI contracts.
"... So, were they advising to waste funds [now and not then]?" he asked when questioned on the matter by reporters. "And as far as I am advised, the funds that [are] being expended are value for money."
Seeking to deflect from the matter, Davis also accused the Official Opposition of being politically immature for raising questions on this issue.
"As I indicated in Parliament the other day, when broadsides were being leveled at the government, the opposition unfortunately continues to see things through a lens, their opposing lens, which requires them to look for the worst of everything and highlight the worst of anything or try to characterize as what is worst," Davis said.
"You have to expect that. When I say, I ought to expect it, I am disappointed that our politics has not matured over the years or evolved over the years where we can look at facts, look at which is good and promote which is good."
This statement from our deputy prime minister is completely laughable. He responds to demands for accountability by calling for political maturity in politics and slamming the opposition for opposing. It somehow reminds us of his comment on national television in 2012 when the infamous PLP billboards, advertising the country's high murder count, were ripped down.
"Are we about hiding the truth?" Davis asked.
Now he accuses the opposition of "highlighting the worst of everything", simply because it is asking the government to be transparent in how it is spending our money. Incredible.
Suppress
This is the same administration that is dilly-dallying in bringing the long promised Freedom of Information Bill. We are approaching the end of this term and we still have these discussions about the public's right to access information which is in its interest, which is its business.
Last year, after fire destroyed the male dormitory, Davis misled Parliament when he initially said the contractor, Hanna, had all-risk insurance. He later came back and reported that he had been mistaken. He then said it would cost around $5.5 million to reconstruct the dormitory. He has yet to provide Parliament with an update on that matter.
We sometimes do not agree with Rollins, but his response to Davis was appropriate. Rollins branded as "asinine" Davis' suggestion that demands for accountability in relation to BAMSI were politically immature.
"This matter needed to be addressed precisely because the government has sought to suppress the efforts of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to investigate the government's fiscal management or mismanagement, whatever the case may be, of the public purse," Rollins said.
He added, "It is offensive that the deputy prime minister has the gall to suggest that it is immature behavior for the opposition to endeavor to have the government account for its expenditure of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds."
Rollins said if the government has nothing to hide, there should be absolutely no reason for the government to continue denying the PAC access to these BAMSI documents and all other information the committee requires for the purposes of its vital work.
Amid a firestorm, Davis tabled the contract for the male dormitory last year. He said he was doing so "for the sake of transparency". But he has still not tabled all the BAMSI contracts or explained the process that led to those contracts being awarded.
We again demand that he does so in the interest of transparency. This is not too much to ask from a government that's not in the business of hiding the truth.
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