How much of the $8.7 million earmarked for mail boat contracts has been or could be awarded to Brent Symonette and Hubert Minnis’ Bahamas Fast Ferries?

ANOTHER Hooking up of friends, lovers and business partners! EY Managing Director, which was awarded a number of NO BID CONTRACTS/Audit work, is also a shareholder in Bahamas Fast Ferries, documents reveal!

Nassau – At the last sitting of the Parliament, Bahamians learnt that Prime Minister The Most Hon. Hubert Alexander Minnis never disclosed his interest in Bahamas Fast Ferries, a company that has sought contracts with the Bahamas Government for mail boat services to the family islands.

First revealed by popular award winning talk show host and social/political activist Rodney Moncur J.P. and then Opposition member Glenys Hanna-Martin revealed how Fast Ferries is “in the mail boat business.”

“I have to raise this: who are the shareholders?” she asked.

For the first time, the Prime Minister then declared his interest in the Fast Ferries mail boat company, which we all know has had this proposal with the Bahamas Government, although it was never disclosed by the Prime Minister.

PM Minnis added, “I have shares in CIBC [First Caribbean], yes. I have shares in Commonwealth Brewery, yes. I have shares in many other entities, here and throughout the world, but I am not involved in the management, the day-to-day assessment, of any of them.”

Bahamas Press has turned our attention to the dollar value behind mail boat services for the country and, on Heads 040 of the national budget under the Ministry of Transport and Local Government page 143 of the budget, we discovered the classification within the 2017/18 budget of the sum of $8,754,000 [Eight Million Seven Hundred and Fifty Four Thousand Dollars] budgeted for Mail Boat Service Contracts.

Our source deep inside the belly of the Ministry of Finance tells us, “We allocate these funds according to the routes. Depending on the length of the trip is how mail boat operators get paid. The trips can be from anywhere around $4,500 to $10,000 per trip. So, each route will be provided for.”

The point of this debacle for the government now is this: “If the Fast Ferry operators [Brent/Minnis] take over a route, then they will get the money for that route. Or, if they buy a mail boat with an existing route, they will be paid by government for that!” the source added. This is Unbelievable!

Some notable points in this BP exclusive are:

1) The Prime Minister is the third largest shareholder of Bahamas Fast Ferries, which is a private company with only 11 shareholders, seeking to secure contracts to monopolize island wide mail boat transportation.

2) The plan, which will be funded by taxpayers, is designed for certain islands through unfair competition. This is certainly newsworthy and deserving of critical commentary from across the spectrum of society.

3) What cannot be overlooked is that another of the elite 11 shareholders of the company is one Michelle Thompson, the Managing Director of Ernst & Young, a company which has benefitted handsomely from receiving A GANG OF NO BID CONTRACTS [BPL/ WSC audits] by the Minnis Government for which the dollar value has yet to be revealed to Parliament or the public for transparency. Birds of a feather do flock together!

What in da hell is this!

We report yinner decide!