NASSAU, BAHAMAS - Opposition leader Michael Pintard is slamming the Davis administration over recent comments regarding a $70 million Saudi loan and the government's delay in complying with the Procurement Act.
Pintard said in a statement, "Instead of doing the right thing and offering a heartfelt apology for them breaking the law yet again by having the Minister of Tourism illegally enter a loan agreement, Minister Michael Halkitis— according to press reports—doubled down by suggesting that Deputy Prime Minister Cooper was the Acting Minister of Finance at the time he reportedly signed the $70 loan agreement for the airport in Exuma."
He continued, "Minister Halkitis, like every Bahamian, knows that the DPM only acts as Prime Minister and Minister of Finance on occasions when the PM is out of the country and, importantly, when the DPM himself is inside The Bahamas. This was not the case in this instance. So please, do not attempt to insult the Bahamian people with that nonsense."
The loan signed with the Saudi Fund for Development is said to be part of the strategic plan to develop a portfolio of Family Island Airports, in line with the Family Island Airport Renaissance Project. The loan agreement signed on September 27th will facilitate the redevelopment of the Exuma Airport infrastructure, as a part of Phase I of the comprehensive plan.
"We remind the PLP and the public that Section 16 (2)(a) and Section 17 of the Debt Management Act state that ONLY the Minister of Finance is permitted to sign a loan agreement binding the government and that he cannot delegate this to the DPM or any other person. The PLP breaks the law and then seeks to double down on their deception when caught. Again, we demand that the government publish the signed agreement in full," Pintard asserted.
Minister Halkitis also stated at a recent press briefing at the Office of the Prime Minister that the government should be compliant with the Procurement Act's requirement to be transparent about contract awards before the end of the year.
The law requires the government to disclose the name and address of winning bidders, the procuring entity, the procurement selection method, and the award amount within 60 days of the contract award.
Pintard stated, "After time and again promising that they will begin obeying the law, they are telling the public that the competent, capable senior public officers in the various government agencies cannot put together a simple spreadsheet with the details of the contracts approved by their departments and then publish that online and in the newspapers. These are the same public officers who have posted notices online and in the press almost daily for years. We beg Minister Halkitis and the PLP to stop trying to denigrate the professionals in the public service. We know they can follow the law and publish this information relatively easily. We remind the government that the boards of public corporations and all of the state-owned enterprises should be posting the details of their contracts over $25,000, and we do not see evidence that any of them are complying with the law."
He further questioned, "What is stopping the Prime Minister from publishing the first annual procurement report due October 2022? He stated eight months ago that we would get it imminently. Are there things in that report he wants to keep hidden? Why doesn't the Prime Minister want to tell the Bahamian people how he and his team have been spending the Bahamian people's money as required by law? When the information is eventually released, the Opposition believes that the public will find out that this PLP administration has given millions and millions of dollars in no-bid contracts to its cronies and hangers-on, likely for jobs that should have been subject to competitive bidding. Why else would the excuses persist?"
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