NASSAU — Minister of Education Jeffrey Lloyd has acknowledged tt the government of The Bahamas broke the law in how it handled the approval process for Oban Energies’ planned $5.5 billion oil refinery and storage project for East Grand Bahama, the Nassau Guardian reported on May 14.
At the height of the controversy surrounding the deal, Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis admitted that “missteps” had been made, but this is the first time a minister has said publicly that the government violated the law.
Lloyd, who is a member of the Cabinet subcommittee examining the Oban matter, made the acknowledgement while on the Our TV program “On The Record” with Jerome Sawyer, who asked him about the controversy.
“… I’ve been an observer of the news in this country for the last 50 years, an intimate observer; participant in the news media, that I’ve not seen probably in my memory any prime minister coming to the House of Assembly, to the Bahamian people, and admitting that we messed up, and we did,” the minister said.
“There’s no question about it, in terms of our processing of this particular application. First and foremost, we certainly did not follow the law. The Planning and Subdivision Act; it’s very clear. We didn’t follow the law, and obviously we had to retreat. The prime minister said so in the House of Assembly. Hey, we made mistakes. We are going to do a complete review of this process and let the proper procedure in law and in policy take place.”
