Ministry Responds to “Malicious Allegations”
The Ministry of Environment has refuted statements made by the environmental group BEST saying, “The Government strongly requests that Mr. Hayward cease and desist from spreading such malicious allegations, clearly designed to influence the outcome of the Senate debate on the SDO.”
The Tucker’s Point SDO has already passed in the House, and will go before the Senate tomorrow, where the eleven Senators [5 PLP, 3 UBP, 3 Independent] will debate the bill, with a total of 6 votes needed for it to pass. The PLP Senators are widely expected to support the bill, while the UBP Senators are expected to vote against it, leaving the three independent Senators as key.
The Environment Ministry’s statement today [Mar.17] was in response to a statement from BEST about the lack of disclosure of Tucker’s Point financials, which said “… as the government has chosen to make the Legislature the decider of whether the SDO is to be granted, the Minister has a fiduciary duty to provide Members of the House and the Senate with ALL relevant information to make that decision.”
BEST’s statement went on to say that, “We respectfully suggest that the Minister will be in breach of his duty if he fails to provide Members of the Senate with all relevant information before they vote on the SDO.”
The statement issued by the Ministry today said, “… Mr. Hayward implies that Minister Roban has sought to in some way deceive the public, members of the House and his own party colleagues by withholding information. This could not be further from the truth. Rather, every step taken by the Minister with regard to this SDO has been conducted with complete openness, including to the extent of placing consideration of the debate in the public domain, something that has never been done before.”
The full statement issued today by the Ministry is below:
The Ministry of Environment, Planning, and Infrastructure Strategy would like to respond to allegations by BEST Chairman Stuart Hayward, made publically this week, that the Minister of Environment, Planning and Infrastructure Strategy, the Hon. Walter H. Roban, is withholding information from the legislature.
This is absolutely not true. Mr. Hayward has been advised of this, and yet he persists in spreading misinformation. The Government strongly requests that Mr. Hayward cease and desist from spreading such malicious allegations, clearly designed to influence the outcome of the Senate debate on the SDO.
The information which Mr. Hayward has demanded from the Government, including the financial records of Tucker’s Point, are simply not for the Government to provide.
What Mr. Hayward requests is neither the finances of Government nor any Government-related body or body funded by the taxpayers’ money – they are those of a privately-owned entity.
A company’s finances are private. It would be similar to going into a doctor’s office and demanding the private files of its patients be released to the public.
Should Tucker’s Point Resort decide to release these financials, that will be their decision…and theirs alone, NOT that of Government.
Secondly, Mr. Hayward implies that Minister Roban has sought to in some way deceive the public, members of the House and his own party colleagues by withholding information. This could not be further from the truth. Rather, every step taken by the Minister with regard to this SDO has been conducted with complete openness, including to the extent of placing consideration of the debate in the public domain, something that has never been done before. We are certain Mr. Hayward has no evidence of his repeated insinuations and again we request that he retract this statement against the Minister.
Mr. Hayward’s efforts to suggest that Minister Roban has a fiduciary responsibility to Parliament to release the private information of a private entity is misguided. The Minister has exceeded his responsibility by tabling the Special Development Order for parliamentary scrutiny and public debate.
Further, the Minister recently promoted the tabling of an amendment to the Development and Planning Act 1974 to clarify that from this point forward every Special Development Order will be a Statutory Instrument and thus subject to parliamentary scrutiny. Appropriate scrutiny would then be via the affirmative resolution procedure, thereby enabling the legislature to fully consider and debate all the permissions and conditions to be attached to a SDO.
The Minister would like to restate he will not be bullied into forcing the holders of the information to release information, as appears to be Mr. Hayward’s desire.
An excerpt of the statement by BEST is below:
BEST also reminds the public that because the government has chosen to make the Legislature the decider of whether the SDO is to be granted, the Minister has a fiduciary duty to provide Members of the House and the Senate with ALL relevant information to make that decision.
We raise the question of whether the Minister has already breached that duty by failing to disclose hidden financial and other information to Members of the House (including members of his own party) when the House voted on the SDO last month.
We respectfully suggest that the Minister will be in breach of his duty if he fails to provide Members of the Senate with all relevant information before they vote on the SDO.
If the UBP were the Governing body this would have not happened. Mr. Hayward would have been given a consultant fee for 26 Million over a period of 5 years and a seat on the Tourism Board and access too the Senate Grounds.
Black on Black. Ain’t that a beach…..
When the UBP were in power, they never gave Mr. Hayward fat consultancy fees. Terry, where on earth did you come up with that insane $26 Million? You on drugs.
I bet my bottom dollar that senator Dillas Wright will be the independent to vote along with the P.L.P I will not waist my time to show up at the protest tomorrow..Or even listen to the debate…because these so called senators have no idea what is at stake !!! God help Bermuda with our future in their hands.
Notice that the government is very careful not to say that Walter “Bud” Roban doesn’t have the financial information. They simply say they don’t think they have any duty to provide the relevant information to Senators to allow them to make an informed decision.
How can you possibly determine if this huge give-away of environmental protection will ‘save’ TPL if you don’t know what their financial position is, or what their business plan is?
The Minister (Roban) doth protest too much, methinks!
It appears clear that the PLP Government does not have, and didn’t request, the financial information that should have been part of this SDO Application. It is also clear that the SDO was passed in the house without any change. The SDO as presently comprised should be rejected and a new and watered down version submitted. What happens if TP does fail and go into receivership? Is there a mechanism in place to cancel the SDO? Almost certainly not, so the new owners can pick up a vastly more valuable property to develop into homes to be sold, which has nothing to do with creating a hotel/tourism product and will result in job losses. If this Government was really concerned for Bermudians jobs why didn’t they help out Newstead – a development created by a Bermudian? The pandering to TP by the SDO in its present form is disgusting and will not benefit Bermuda or Bermudians.
I have been reading everything and have tried to be objective…….I only hope that the Senate does what is right for BERMUDA and BERMUDIANS tomorrow and votes this SDO down…….I feel very sorry for Bermuda if this thing goes through!
I feel sorry for Bermuda if this thing does NOT go through!
why? because of the rich beautiful land NOT being mowed through to make way for ridiculous wealth and a skeleton resort bringing no worth to Bermuda?
Slow down everybody.. get the facts . Senators Vote NOOOOOOOOOOOO! send it back to parliament again!
This Government has launched a new era in the process for granting Special Development Orders. Planning permission via a Special Development Order, a legitimate means to authorize development under the Development and Planning Act 1974, will only be considered for developments deemed to be of national importance. Enhancement of our tourism product is deemed to be such a development.
IT IS NOT A TOURISM PRODUCT, IT IS REAL ESTATE SPECUALATION!
Mr. Hayward implies that Minister Roban has sought to in some way deceive the public, members of the House and his own party colleagues by withholding information.
HE DID WITHOLD INFORMATION FROM MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT BY NOT DISCLOSING THE SAD FINANCIAL STATE OF TPC. THIS WAS CONFIRMED BY MP DALE BUTLER AND MP RANDY HORTON WHO STATED DURING THE DEBATE IN PARLIAMENT THAT THEY HAD FEW DETAILS ABOUT THE SDO. MR TRIPPE CONFIRMED HE GAVE FINANCIAL DETAILS TO THE GOVERNMENT. SO MP WALTER ROBAN MUST HAVE WITHHELD THIS INFORMATION?
We raise the question of whether the Minister has already breached that duty by failing to disclose hidden financial and other information to Members of the House (including members of his own party) when the House voted on the SDO last month.
We respectfully suggest that the Minister will be in breach of his duty if he fails to provide Members of the Senate with all relevant information before they vote on the SDO.
AGREE TOTALLY!
Why did the House have to make all previous SDO’s retroactive in the latest Development and Planning Act 1974 Amendment?
MIGHT IT BE THAT ALL PREVIOUS SDO’s GRANTED BACK TO 2006 WERE ILLEGAL UNDER THE ACT?
So let me get this straight… we live in a free and democratic country and a government Minister is issuing a cease and desist warning for an environmental group that is calling for financial information to be released by him to a company who wants to build on protected land, amid reports that the company is heavily in debt and, perhaps, not the best bet in the world to extend all sorts of special favours to??? Whoa… what planet is he living on????
co-sign…
This ish is ridiculous…. what ulterior motive could these environmentalists have???
It’s PROTECTED LAND!!!! END OF ARGUMENT!!!
or…
…maybe S.D.O. stands for Senseless Deforestation Opportunity… then by all means proceed…
Bermuda has too much land anyways… I SAY CONCRETE EVERYTHING!!!! Fake the nature!! like disney world without the tourists!!!!
smfh
Ed Trippe has confirmed in various media outlets that he provided Government with comprehensive financial details to support TPC’s request for an SDO. BEST are understandably curious as to why this same level of detail (which the Government have based their decision on) has not similarly been provided to ALL members of the House and Senate in support of the decision making process. If our elected (and appointed) Government representatives are expected to make informed decisions on behalf of the electorate why shouldn’t they be given all of the facts?
Government has been beating their chest about transparency and accountability in this SDO process but has clearly been obfuscating key pieces of information from those who are tasked with deciding what is in Bermuda’s best interests. The Government’s rebuttal to BEST’s request for transparency purposefully ignores the point regarding disclosure to MP’s and Senators, choosing instead to make this a privacy issue when that’s clearly not the case. If anyone can be accused of misleading the public it’s clearly Minister Roban.
It is disturbing that the decision makers did not insist on having TP financial information before making a decision. Roban should have provided it up front.
Looks, walks and sounds like a duck!
If a private company does business with the government, they are doing business with the government who acts on behalf of the people. In this case the people are asking their government to share information that they have received to make adecision on behalf of the people. The people have asked to see the back up information for that decision.
All quite reasonable in a transparent government.
However, when you start using confidentiallity instead of secrecy the situation changes. The answer to this is, if Tuckers Point wants the information to stay confidential then they should walk away and not do business with the government on this issue i.e. changing goverment policy from protected land to unprotected.
But if they wish to continue they should release the government from this idea of confidentiallity and allow the government to share information with its constituents. They have a choice!
Agreed.
LOL