A comprehensive rebuttal to a critique of the Bermuda Government’s plans for a new airport terminal has been issued by the Ministry of Finance.

The document was provided to The Royal Gazette in response to chartered accountant Craig Mayor’s evidence before the Public Accounts Committee, in which he chastised the Government for failing to carry out its maths “homework” when it came to the project’s potential risks.

Mr Mayor told the PAC on Thursday that his expertise was limited to accounting rather than airport logistics, but repeatedly questioned the numbers behind the project.

A July 18 response given yesterday branded his conclusions as incorrect or “speculative, imaginary and false narrative”.

The letter from Bob Richards, the Minister of Finance, thanked Mr Mayor for his report, but said that “a large majority of the conclusions drawn therein are based on a fundamentally false premise, which is that the Regulated Revenue Guarantee is tantamount to a general government guarantee”.

“It is not. Neither do the credit-rating agencies agree with your viewpoint.” Mr Richards added that “the paper appears to assume that Ministry of Finance officials are not fully aware of the challenges facing Bermuda today”, and that the Government was bent on a course of action “diametrically opposed to what is in the national interest”.

“There is no evidence supporting that assumption as it relates to this Government, particularly this minister,” he added. Mr Mayor asserted that the island could not afford to spend $250 million on a new airport, to which the minister replied: “Finally, something on which we agree.” The ministry maintained that the public-private partnership backed by Canadian Commercial Corporation was the only viable model for its transfer of financial risk away from the island. Mr Richards concluded that “the national interest is being well served by this project — we are replacing an ageing crumbling asset that is vital to all sectors of our community and economy, and we are doing so in a manner that mitigates the many large risks associated with such a project, as well as financing it in such a manner that it will not impair the Government’s balance sheet and national debt”.

• For the full text of the finance minister’s response, click on the PDF link under “Related Media”