Photo: From left: President of 3S Barbados SRL, Jonathan Danos, Minister of Public Works and Transport Gline Clarke, and Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance Clyde Mascoll
Danos Explains How Bridge & Flyover Kickbacks And Bribes Work
If you want to know why our flyover and highway work costs so much, you need do nothing more than listen to Jonathan Danos – the President of the company that was awarded the flyover contract by the Barbados Government without a competitive bidding process.
Mr. Danos is involved in a very messy court battle with his old employer, Britain’s Mabey and Johnson Limited bridge builders. In recently filed court documents, Mr. Danos explains how he paid huge bribes to politicians’ middlemen so that the respective governments would award the contracts to Mabey and Johnson Limited.
On behalf of Mabey and Johnson Limited, Mr. Danos says he paid secret commissions of 8.5%, 17% and 15% to middlemen in Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Panama, respectively. According to Danos, this is standard operating procedure in his business when dealing with small governments.
For instance, if a Caribbean government wants to build a series of bridges that should cost say, 100 million dollars, the price is raised by the amount of the bribe. In our example of an 8.5% bribe, the project price would be raised to 108.5 million dollars. The government would borrow or use tax revenues to pay Danos 108.5 million dollars. Danos would build the bridges but would pay the extra 8.5 million dollars to various middleman companies for “consulting” or other non-existent services.
Guess Who Owns The Middleman Companies?
Ha! You guessed it… the politicians who awarded the bridge contract to Danos in the first place own the “consulting” companies.
What a great scam. The politicians who awarded the bridge contract pocket 8.5 million dollars in their offshore bank accounts and the poor sucker taxpayers are stuck paying for the politicians’ bribes as well as the over-priced bridges.
Now remember, folks… this not our speculation. This is Jonathan Danos admitting under oath in court that he paid these “secret commission” bribes for bridge projects in Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Panama. In Jamaica the bribe amounted to almost US$ 4 million dollars.
And what about the famously over-budget flyover and highway project in Barbados?
How Much Did Jonathan Danos Pay In Bribes For Our Barbados Flyovers?
When the Owen Arthur government awarded the flyover project to Danos’ company, 3S Structural Steel Solutions, it did so without putting the project out for bidding. Owen Arthur and the gang simply awarded the contract then valued at BDS$120 million to Jonathan Danos.
Gosh… Owen Arthur must have taken a shine to Danos for some reason – especially considering that Danos’ company was brand new formed in 2005 and had never built anything at all, let alone flyovers and highways.
But for some reason the government awarded the contract to Jonathan Danos. Of course, the project has since skyrocketed from $120 million to $360 million or so.
Ten Percent Of $360 Million Is…
We at Barbados Free Press have been trying to guess what percentage of the flyover project costs are being diverted by Jonathan Danos to offshore companies owned or controlled by Barbados Government members and officials. We think that 17 percent kickback as Danos provided in the Dominican Republic scam would be way too much for a large project like the Barbados flyovers, while 8.5 percent like he paid to a Jamaican middleman might be a little low.
How about 10 percent? That would be a $36 million dollar kickback paid to Barbados politicians and government officials. As Danos explains in his sworn court documents, his method of doing business would be to pay middlemen and their companies for non-existent services – with the monies going to the government officials who awarded him the contract without public tender.
So how about it, Prime Minister Owen Arthur, Minister of Public Works and Transport Gline Clarke, and Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance Clyde Mascoll… where should we be looking for your offshore bank accounts and “consulting” companies? New York? London? Nigeria?
No wonder that Prime Minister Owen Arthur recently said, “I’m motivated in a special way by the determination never to see the DLP hold the reins of office in this country.”
Indeed! Arthur and his gang are desperate to win because if the DLP forms the next government, there will be hell to pay when they start auditing the BLP projects and following the money trails.
From The Guardian Unlimited…
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