Bahamas Press calls it Fraud by False Pretense
According to Sharon T…
This afternoon the Prime Minister informed Parliament that he was tabling the much anticipated Oban Energies Heads of Agreement signed back on February 19 in Grand Bahama. But upon review of the document, an immediate discrepancy appears. At the Heads of Agreement signing broadcast to the nation and world live via internet and via print and broadcast media, Oban’s “non executive chairman” Peter Krieger, in the presence of his presumed attorney and a representative from a financial institution he claimed in a Tribune report late last year to be one of two to be funding the project, signed what the government told the nation was the Oban Heads of Agreement. That reputed agreement was also signed at the ceremony by Cabinet and National Economic Council Secretary Camille Johnson.
But the document tabled in Parliament bares a different signatory for Oban: Satpal Dhunna, who the nation has not seen, who was not present at the February 19 signing, and who at one time was said by Oban’s website to be the company’s president. The document tabled in Parliament is dated as February 19 in “Grand Bahama” as signed by Dhunna, but it was Peter Krieger, alongside the Prime Minister and in front of the nation and the world, who signed that agreement on February 19 in Grand Bahama, and not Satpal Dhunna.
WILL THE GOVERNMENT ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:
1. Where is the agreement signed by Oban principal Peter Krieger at the Feb 19 ceremony, and why was that agreement not tabled in Parliament?
2. If Satpal Dhunna did in fact sign the document tabled in Parliament, when did he do so? If he is Oban’s president, and was in the country to sign that agreement on February 19 as the tabled document purports, why was he not present at the signing ceremony to do so? Why would the government sign a Heads of Agreement before the nation and world with an “ambassador”, as Krieger later termed himself, if the president was in the country on February 19?
3. Will the government confirm or deny whether the document tabled in Parliament this evening was actually signed this week, and not on Feb 19?
4. The agreement signed by Peter Krieger was expected to be tabled last Wednesday in Parliament. It was not. Revelations about Krieger’s criminal and civil cases as well as troubling information about other listed executives including Dhunna, had already surfaced in the local media. The Prime Minister did not give a direct answer when asked why the agreement would no longer be tabled that day. Was the delay designed to attempt to create a fix of some sort in reaction to the publicized revelations?
5. By tabling a document purportedly signed by someone other than who the nation, members of Cabinet, the Prime Minister, the Cabinet Secretary, supposed financiers and other visiting officials observed on Feb 19, is the government seeking to tell the nation that the Feb 19 ceremony was a charade? If so, why would a competent government engage in such a thing? And how can the government reasonably expect the country and the wider business and investment community not to be legitimately suspicious of the document tabled in Parliament, of its origins and of the government as a whole?
6. Has Oban Energies produced proof of project funding as was promised by Krieger at the Feb 19 signing? He indicated that such proof would be provided the week of the signing. If such proof was provided, why wasn’t it tabled given the reported history of this proposed investment which failed to secure an agreement with two prior and successive administrations due to concerns including the failure to provide proof of funding?
Pictured below is Peter Krieger signing what the government said was the Oban Heads of Agreement on Feb 19 in Grand Bahama. But below is the first and the signature page of an agreement tabled in Parliament purportedly signed by Oban president Satpal Dhunna on the same date. What was Krieger signing and where is that agreement?
