The frustrated board of the Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation has stripped the Executive Chairman Sidney Stubbs, the Member of Parliament for Holy Cross, of his powers in the day-to-day administration of the corporation.
In a meeting on Thursday that was attended by Trade and Industry Minister Leslie O. Miller, the board passed resolutions to change the way the corporation’s affairs are being managed.
Effective immediately, Mr. Stubbs will not be allowed to sign any cheques of the corporation and all major decisions of the corporation must be referred to Deputy Chairman Godfrey Eneas.
Mr. Eneas, who is an agricultural consultant, will sign cheques instead of Mr. Stubbs.
Another resolution of the board was to terminate the services of public relations consultant Earlin Williams, effective immediately. Both Mr. Stubbs and Mr. Williams have been embroiled in a controversy at the corporation in which their names were called in allegations of misappropriations of the corporation’s funds.
The decisions of the board effectively usurp the authority of Prime Minister Perry Christie who was apparently reluctant to remove Mr. Stubbs as the executive chairman, despite pleas from the minister.
ﾠﾠSome members of the public, and members of opposition parties, over the last several weeks, have called upon the prime minister to be decisive and remove either the executive chairman or the minister.
A month ago, the entire board of the corporation wrote Mr. Miller saying that members were not prepared to work with Mr. Stubbs. Despite this, the prime minister took no decision and Mr. Stubbs remains entrenched as the executive chairman.
Under the law, only the prime minister has the authority to terminate the services of the executive chairman.
What the board has effectively done, according to well-placed sources, is to “call the hand of the prime minister” and rendered Mr. Stubbs ineffective and impotent as chairman.
The BAIC controversy flared up in the House of Assembly this week when South Andros MP Whitney Bastian accused Mr. Stubbs of wasting the corporation’s funds.
Mr. Bastian claimed that Mr. Stubbs paid a consultant in excess of $40,000 in the last two months “in pursuit of irregular carnal lust and delight.”
Defending his reputation Wednesday, Mr. Stubbs urged Mr. Bastian to desist in his “unfounded” allegations or he would be forced to say “some unparliamentary things” about the Member for South Andros.
The BAIC controversy derailed debate on the e-commerce bills several times during the proceedings on Wednesday and Thursday.
On Thursday, Mr. Stubbs explained that Earlin Williams has earned less than $25,000 over the last six months for work that would have caused the corporation elsewhere in excess of $100,000.
Prime Minister Perry Christie told the Bahama Journal more than two weeks ago that he will “soon” put an end to the controversy. But he has made little public comment on the matter and, in fact, never officially announced the board of the corporation.
Minister Miller told the Bahama Journal Friday that he wished not to comment on the meeting and its outcome as he arrived an hour and a half late after attending other important meetings.
“I just don’t want to comment on it anymore,” Mr. Miller said, then advised the Bahama Journal to contact board members on the matter.
“That’s a dead issue,” he said. Mr. Stubbs, meanwhile, was unavailable for comment Friday.
He told the Bahama Journal earlier in the week that everything was in order at the corporation and he had no major concerns regarding BAIC’s operations.
The Bahama Journal
