On Monday, the prime minister released a statement in which he accused Mr. Key of making false statements after his resignation as a Senator.
Mr. Christie said Mr. Key decided to separate himself from the government because of what he apparently “perceived to be a loss of personal political influence in Abaco and his jealousy over the perceived ascendancy of other individuals, in particular, a former prot�g� towards whom Mr. Key appears to have developed a great deal of hostility in recent times.”
Mr. Christie said initially he decided not to make any formal public response to Mr. Key’s charges, but changed his mind after Mr. Key released the full text of his resignation letter to the media “replete with all its falsehoods.”
“The central thrust of Mr. Key’s resignation letter is that he personally delivered to me a document showing that a corrupt deal was afoot and that rather than dealing with the allegation, I punished him for reporting it; that indeed I caused him to be ostracized and blacklisted from that day forward. This is absolute rubbish. There is no other way to describe it,” the prime minister said.
In his letter, Mr. Key claimed that he came in possession of a document which showed that a $38 million contract, or a contract amounting to $190 million over five years, was about to be awarded by a key government ministry.
He claimed that there was a proposed scheme in place to defraud the Bahamian tax payers by way of the Public Treasury of millions of dollars with the cooperation of a government Minister and his cronies. The former Senator said in his letter he met with Mr. Christie and presented him the document.
The prime minister said in his release to the media that Mr. Key did come to see him “to inform me of his belief that a certain Minister was about to enter into a contract with a prominent U.S. based firm in return for which the Minister and a political colleague of Mr. Key in Abaco stood to obtain a corrupt advantage.”
Mr. Christie said, “Let me say at once that I was immediately satisfied, based on my intimate knowledge of the bidding system in the ministry in question, that Mr. Key’s belief was completely mistaken. I subsequently confirmed that the system had not changed.
“In point of fact, however, the document upon which Mr. Key relied did not support his belief at all. It said or implied corruption or intended corruption against no one whomsoever, whether minister or otherwise. The document was all that Mr. Key had to go on and, frankly, it was odd that Mr. Key thought it lent support to his belief.”
In response to Mr. Christie’s statement, Mr. Key told the Bahama Journal on Monday night that, “I ought to have gone to the police with the documents rather than going to the prime minister. But I am going to seek legal advice on it because I have some heavy stuff.”
He said that what was so damning was the cover letter accompanying the rough draft of the contract.
“I found them in my post office box in Abaco and I thought it was important enough that I flew into Nassau to place the documents in the prime minister’s hand. I wanted to protect my prime minister and my government,” the former Senator told the Bahama Journal.
“The cover letter lists the names of certain individuals. The public needs to see that document and they can make up their minds on whether I did the right thing. The nation can decide whether it was irrelevant, or a mistake in judgment on my behalf.”
Mr. Christie said the firm in question did not receive any contract and was disqualified from bidding on the $15 million, not $38 million, contract because it did not meet the ministry’s criteria.
He maintained that the government’s bidding process is as transparent as it could possibly be “and there are any number of checks and balances that make it virtually impossible for any minister to pull a deal.”
“Indeed, it bears emphasis that the system in the ministry in question was designed many years ago for precisely the purpose of avoiding ministerial interference in the bidding process,” the prime minister said.
“I am completely satisfied that there was never any such intention on the part of the Minister or anyone else in my government. It follows therefore that Mr. Key is completely wrong in thinking that he made a credible complaint of corruption. Nothing could be further from the truth. His complaint was not only not credible, it was absurd.”
The prime minister vowed that his government would continue to serve with integrity.
“This has been the watchword of my administration from its very first day and I am completely satisfied that my government’s record in this regard remains unimpeachable,” he said.
The prime minister also noted that it is “astonishing” that on a matter of such “constitutional gravity”, Mr. Key by his own admission never called to inform him about the resignation letter.
Mr. Christie said that he put a thorough trace on the letter in his office, but there “is absolutely no record of the receipt of that letter by anyone in my office either on the 10th of January or any other date.”
“Letters coming into my office are routinely booked by my secretarial staff before they are placed before me,” he said. “There is no record of any such bookings nor does any of my staff have any such bookings nor does any member of my staff have any recollection of ever receiving Mr. Key’s letter.”
The prime minister added that he had no ill will toward the former Senator.
“I had no reason to be annoyed or irritated or offended by what he had done. Indeed I continued to have amicable meetings and telephone conversations with Mr. Key on other matters [after being presented with the document in question.] At no time did he give even the slightest suggestion that he felt that he was being ostracized or blacklisted,” Mr. Christie said.
Mr. Christie said that he was in the process of choosing a Senator to replace Mr. Key.
Tosheena Blair, The Bahama Journal
