NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Three former Bahamas Power & Light directors allege the dysfunction that brought down BPL’s board in 2018 was fueled by petty grievances and the ego of then chairwoman Darnell Osborne.
The allegations are in the new witness statements of Ferron Bethel, Patrick Rollins and Whitney Heastie which were filed last week and come after Osborne, Nick Dean and Nicola Thompson sued the government for wrongful dismissal, misfeasance, and slander.
In their statements, Bethel, Rollins, and Heastie recount alleged incidents and portray Osborne as controlling and craving primary authority over BPL’s affairs.
Bethel said he realized early that Osborne was a “strong-willed individual who relished control” and that she and Thompson were women who “knew each other quite well” and “felt that they were there to micro-manage BPL, as opposed to establishing policy”.
“I recall having several conversations with Osborne regarding corporate governance following which she indicated that she was going to take a course in corporate governance,” he said.
He said he knew problems were brewing when Osborne started complaining about how much then CEO Heastie and Rollins were traveling and that no one else was getting the same opportunity.
He said disharmony intensified as the two factions differed during Shell negotiations.
“I recall beginning to feel very uncomfortable as I did not want to be drawn into any petty politics within the board,” he said.
“Matters escalated when Rollins informed me that he and Heastie had attended a dinner at Shima, hosted by Shell, which was also attended by Osborne and Thompson. Rollins stated that during the dinner Thompson had been silently mouthing accusations across the table regarding him and Heastie.”
Rollins, in his statement, said when he sat across from Thompson during the meeting, she looked him in his eyes and told him: “You and Whitney are corrupt.”
The men said this disturbed them so much that they complained to Bannister about the state of the board.
Bethel said he asked Bannister if he could arrange a meeting with Osborne and Rollins to resolve the issue.
He said although Rollins and Osborne appeared to resolve their issues at the meeting he arranged, that harmony was short-lived. Tensions soon arose again when Rollins and Heastie took a trip to China.
“As I recall, Heastie and Rollins attended a conference in China with Minister Bannister, and Osborne was incensed that she had not been invited,” Bethel said.
“Osborne approached me expressing her outrage that Rollins and Heastie flew on this trip ‘first class’ and that she had not been invited. She wanted to know what a first-class ticket to China costs as she was aware that I had earlier traveled to Hong Kong and Australia/New Zealand on vacation.
“I informed her what my ticket had cost me, and she indicated that she would not be signing off on the costs of the tickets for Heastie and Rollins, irrespective of the fact that the minister had invited them. I suggested to her that as this matter was really annoying her, she should speak directly to the minister to ascertain why she was not invited and who would bear the cost of the tickets. I don’t know whether she spoke to the minister or not.”
Rollins said he can “vividly recall” Osborne’s “sulky disposition” when the China trip was discussed at a subsequent board meeting, adding that she was on her cell phone for most of the meeting and participated little in the discussion.
Bethel said tension developed between Osborne and Thompson on one hand, and himself on the other.
As chairman of the audit committee, he said he and Rollins were perplexed over why Osborne and Thompson preferred to give PwC a contract to do an external audit of BPL over their choice, KPMG, which offered a lower bid.
He and Rollins speculated that Osborne and Thompson chose PwC because they had a relationship with the people there.
He said when he and Rollins rejected the tender committee’s recommendation, choosing KPMG’s cheaper bid instead, there was obvious tension between the two factions.
He said problems increased when an audit raised concerns about a media consultant BPL had hired and over Osborne’s intention to donate $20k to the Bahamas Institute of Chartered Accountants (BICA). Bethel said to his knowledge, that donation was never made.
“Matters began to rapidly deteriorate,” Bethel said. He added that it was clear that when Dean joined the board, he became a part of Osborne’s faction.
Osborne subsequently removed Heastie as the chair of the procurement committee and appointed Dean to that post, he said.
Following this, Bethel said the board accomplished “virtually nothing” and Osborne refused to execute the memorandum of understanding with Shell.
He said Osborne’s faction refused to authorize the purchase of a new turbocharger after one of BPL’s generators went bad. Osborne’s group wanted a full forensic investigation first, “irrespective of the fact that we were losing millions of dollars per month because of the downed generator,” he said.
Bethel said the final straw for him was over the director of security post. While Heastie supported the appointment of Lester Fernander, who had been employed with the Grand Bahama Power Company, Bethel claimed Osborne’s faction opposed this choice.
He said he told Osborne and Dean that hiring was solely in his purview of the CEO but they disagreed and said they would seek external legal advice to determine whether Heastie could engage the director of security.
Bethel said he then wrote to Rollins to say he would discuss with his wife his intention to resign from BPL’s board out of frustration with a board that “accomplished nothing meaningful in the last three months.”
Bethel said Rollins sent his email to Bannister who then sent the document to the prime minister.
When Bethel met with the prime minister, he told him the board had become dysfunctional because of Osborne’s “attempt to control the board and her inflated ego”.
“After considering what I had to say, the prime minister stated that he was going to fire the entire board,” he said.
“At that point, I indicated to the prime minister that I had never been fired from anything in my life; accordingly, I would resign. After the meeting, I contacted Minister Bannister and told him that I wished to resign. He informed me that he will be summoning the board to a meeting the following week.”
Rollins’ witness statement largely mirrors Bethel’s statement. In his account, he alleges that at one point Osborne and Thompson canvassed the board seeking to have Osborne’s salary increased to $300k per year, something he opposed.
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