By Kendea Smith
Progressive Liberal Party Chairman Bradley Roberts (Journal file photo)
It's only been two weeks since Cable &Wireless Communications (CWC) took over the management of the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) and already the company has already been accused of conflict of interest.
The British telecom giant sealed the deal with the government to purchase 51 per cent of BTC for $210 million plus stamp taxes pegged at $7 million on April 6.
On that day, CWC announced that Geoff Houston would be the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of BTC.
CWC has yet to announce its full slate of board of directors, who will be the majority of the board at BTC.
However, according to Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Chairman Bradley Roberts, there has already been a selection that could cause major implications.
He said it all began when former chairman of BTC Julian Francis announced that he would no longer be a part of the board.
"It is my understanding that the former executive chairman was to become the new deputy chairman of the privatised BTC. I notice that he is no longer on the board or an officer of the company. I am referring to Julian Francis. He appears in the pecking order to be replaced by Mark Holowesko," Mr. Roberts said while on the weekly programme Jones and Company with host Wendall Jones.
Mr. Roberts said when he found out that Mr. Holowesko was replacing Mr. Francis, he began to do some research and a Freeport resident, who was doing the same, contacted him.
"He was two steps ahead of me. He provided me with information that I found very interesting," he said.
"One was that Mr. Holowesko was a director of a very large investment group that has considerable holdings in a company called TEMASKA Holdings PTC Ltd, which happens to be the majority shareholder of Cable & Wireless Worldwide.
"I asked myself the question, ‘Is Mr. Holowesko representing The Bahamas’ government interest in the new privatised BTC or is he representing the people for whom he is employed and is paid, I am told, very handsomely.’ There are indications that this company are major financers of Cable & Wireless and may have even provided the funding in order to complete the sale."
Mr. Roberts said that neither the government nor CWC indicated where the funds were coming from to complete the transaction.
"The government gives no explanation for Mr. Holowesko’s appointment and I think that the government is duty bound to tell the Bahamian people what the facts are regarding this matter," Mr. Roberts said.
"Some have suggested to me that Mr. Holowesko has played a very pivotal and serious role in this transaction and hence his appointment to the board. Progressive Liberal Party Leader Perry Christie has announced that with the blessing of the Bahamian people there will be a Commission of Inquiry called to complete and total matters relating to this 51 per cent sale of BTC to Cable & Wireless."
He said that he was also told that Chief Executive Officer of LIME David Shaw told staff members at BTC that the company was working with the Government of The Bahamas for more than 16 months on the transaction.
"Mr. Shaw also disclosed that the Government of The Bahamas rushed Cable & Wireless to sign this deal," he said.
The Opposition along with others have been staunchly opposed to the majority sale of BTC.
Mr. Roberts explained his personal objections to the deal.
"Look at BTC. You see the cadre of expatriates coming in to run BTC. All those persons [BTC] have there with Bachelor’s Degrees and Master’s Degrees, LLBs the whole works and degrees of all sorts, they are now taking the back seat. That should not have happened in this time of our development and to really put fuel to the fire, they gave away the company for chicken feed," he said.
The PLP chairman said he has also taken issue with the fact that CWC is going to have a restructuring exercise soon.
This is despite the fact that officials have said that the restructuring exercise would be a voluntary one.
"The majority of Bahamians believe that it should not have been sold. When you are going to throw overboard about 300 to 600 of our Bahamian brothers and sisters – that cannot be justified," Mr. Roberts said.
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