And tonight, another former PUP Minister is under some scrutiny. Rodwell Ferguson, former Stann Creek West Area Representative, and former Minister of Sports is at the center of what appears to be an attempted bribery scandal.
In mid-November, Ferguson wrote a letter to the Minister of Lands Gaspar Vega, asking him to help in a private land development project that was in trouble. As Ferguson explains in the letter, he is responsible for a 19 acre development involving 80 lots in Sittee River that was being subdivided when the government changed. But it wasn’t finished and many who paid their money up front never got their titles. Ferguson claims those monies were used for cleaning
the land, survey costs and infrastructure...but not for titles.
That put Ferguson, as the man responsible, in a bind and he asks Vega’s help to push the grants through which means getting the Commissioner of Lands to sign them. But that’s where it gets dicey because as an incentive, Ferguson offers Vega this: he says, quote: “I am prepared to give up 8 of the lots to yourself or whoever you want to agree on.” And to show that he can deliver, he adds, “I think some 19 lots are in the name of a company by the name of Macaroni View Limited which I have control of.”
Sounds like offering a bribe to us, but Ferguson says, it’s not. Today Ferguson told us that he didn’t try to bribe anyone. He said it was a good faith effort that’s simply been misinterpreted. His story is that he was simply trying to live up to a commitment that he had made to people who had paid for their lands and were behind him every day – threatening to bring charges and he was just trying to settle the matter as expeditiously as possible.
He says what he meant with the offer was that Vega can give the 8 lots back to the government or do as they please, as long as he gets the titles. He adds that there, “might be a possibility that his request was poorly worded.” He says that the Minister has not gotten back to him. And he also hasn’t gotten back to us, we called Bega for comment, but he did not return our calls.
Of course, the cute side to all this is that Ferguson recently received a major promotion in his party when he was more or less installed as the Chair of the Southern Caucus after Old Guard loyalist Mike Espat was kicked out of the seat by the PUP Executive. And now this revelation comes just as the party is vowing to crack down on arty member for past acts of wrongdoing, putting the reform executive in what would seem to be a tight spot....with a leading member seeming to offer a bribe to a public official.
