Finance minister Bob Richards stands by his claims that financial instructions were fully adhered to with regards to the Bermuda Government’s deal to build a new airport in light of a new memo that surfaced at the last Public Accounts Committee meeting.

A fresh war of words on the controversial multimillion dollar airport deal is expected to erupt in the House of Assembly today, when acting Opposition leader David Burt takes the Deputy Premier to task over the memo.

The document dated March 16, 2016 was sent from Accountant-General Curtis Stovell to financial secretary Anthony Manders and reiterates claims from Mr Stovell that when he gave permission for government to pursue a deal with the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC), he was not agreeing to the entire project, merely the early stages.

It read: “I was initially of the understanding that it was CCC who introduced Aecon to this transaction. My read of this is that Aecon was the intended construction partner, which was not my initial understanding when the CCC Letter Agreement was provided to me.”

Speaking on the memo PAC chairman David Burt said that this was because the Ministry of Finance did not provide complete information which he described as “extraordinary”.

“What reason would the Minister of Finance have for not providing the information to the Accountant-General?” Mr Burt queried. “All I can speak to is the fact that the information was not provided.

“I think it’s an indictment of the Minister of Finance and the entire airport deal. It’s astounding.”

However, Mr Richards asserted that while lessons could be learnt in retrospect in terms of better communication going forward, the document signed off by Mr Stovell described the entire process. Mr Richards told this newspaper: “Quite frankly I cannot account for what the Accountant-General thought I can only account for what is written on a particular document that authorised the whole process and has his signature on it. What he thought and what he didn’t think is a matter for him — I can be held accountable for the dictates of financial instructions and we have fulfilled those requirements. If he had a misunderstanding he should have asked questions certainly.”

Asked whether there could be a better system put in place to avoid such confusion in the future, Mr Richards responded: “To some extent this has been a learning process for everyone. I don’t think anyone in Bermuda knew about the CCC model — knowing what we know now perhaps we could have explained it better but I don’t think that really counts for much here.”

Mr Richards went on to describe the issue of whether CCC or Aecon showed an interest in an airport deal as a “red herring” saying: “The transaction is a transaction between two governments and therefore irrespective of who said what in Canada to whom, that was not the transaction. The transaction didn’t start until officials from the Bermuda Government heard about this model and travelled to Toronto to find out about it. If Aecon was reading my budget speech which said that we want to redevelop our airport or someone in Canada Googled it, who cares because that person never contacted the Bermuda Government. Anything else was irrelevant. Aecon never contacted the Bermuda Government or me before I went to Toronto I didn’t even know they existed quite frankly.

“We had to sign this letter of agreement to set about getting that waiver and we got it so as far as I am concerned its case closed — anything else is just politics and political rhetoric for what that’s worth and I don’t think it’s worth much.”

Mr Burt, Acting Opposition Leader, said he planned to raise the issue of the memo in the House today.

“This is a public document. Absolutely I plan on making an issue of it because I find it absolutely extraordinary.

“The Accountant-General is saying I was provided with incorrect, incomplete information, when the Minister of Finance was clear in knowing that Aecon brought the deal to the table.

“It calls into question the very essential, legal basis of this contract.”

The shadow finance minister said the memo showed the Accountant-General, whose permission is necessary to bypass official financial instructions, was “in no way shape or form in the loop”.