A political agenda, not price, was behind union opposition to the airport redevelopment project, the man who spearheaded the deal has claimed.

Bob Richards said that he did not believe a claim made by Chris Furbert, the president of the Bermuda Industrial Union, that the organisation was opposed to the redevelopment of LF Wade International Airport solely because of the cost.

He added: “Mr Furbert and his colleagues were against this for a political agenda.”

Mr Richards, the finance minister in the last One Bermuda Alliance government, was speaking after a press conference was given by the head of the island’s blue-collar union last week. Mr Furbert claimed that the union was never opposed to the airport project in principle.

He said: “Let’s just be clear, because I think that, somehow or the other, [Craig] Cannonier and the One Bermuda Alliance, and some of the other people ... would have you believe that we’ve always been against the airport project. We have always been against the cost of the new airport project.”

Mr Richards said that he saw the comment made by Mr Furbert while at an airport in London, England. He said: “When I read it, I laughed out so loud people started turning around and looking at me.”

Mr Richards said that Mr Furbert and the BIU “had an organised opposition to this airport almost from the start”.

He said that the union had urged its members to reject a proposal when airport staff shifted from being Government of Bermuda employees to Skyport workers, “even though the proposal contained a significant pay rise for the staff”.

Mr Richards added that at the time there was a government employee pay freeze in place.

He said that in addition to the pay raise, the proposal also let workers keep their government benefits.

Mr Richards added of the union: “So they clearly weren’t acting in the interests of their members.”

He added that staff took the offer “irrespective of what the union was urging them to do”.

Mr Furbert also took issue with comments made by Craig Cannonier, the leader of the OBA, who had claimed that the Progressive Labour Party had “tried to shut down” the airport project.

Mr Cannonier said: “The hypocrisy and the irony that this government now is full-heartedly embracing the airport — I’m saying to Bermudians ... exercise your discernment when you see these things.”

Mr Cannonier was speaking after the completion of the airport’s new terminal building was marked with a roof-wetting ceremony.

Zane DeSilva, the Minister of Tourism and Transport, Lawrence Scott, the Government Whip, and Curtis Dickinson, the Minister of Finance, took part in the event.

Mr Furbert highlighted the OBA’s opposition to a public-private partnership redevelopment at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital, which opened in 2014.

He said: “Let’s just rewind the clock back a little bit because my understanding was the hospital project was started under the PLP government.”

Mr Furbert said Mr Richards had expressed concerns about the hospital deal while the OBA was in Opposition.

He added: “Two years later, his government is down there for the opening ceremony for the hospital.”

Mr Richards said that likening the two projects was comparing “apples and oranges”.

He explained: “While there were some concerns about the cost of the hospital wing, the level of protest and objections and civil unrest — there’s no comparison between those two.

“To make a comparison is really conflating two different things.”

Mr Richards said that the “resistance and interference” run by the OBA to the hospital project was nothing like that by the PLP and the union to the airport project.

He added: “The union was out on a mission to prevent that thing from happening.

“And I don’t think we ever did that for the hospital.”

Mr Richards said that details of the public-private partnership deal for the hospital redevelopment, which was struck under the PLP government, were never made public.

He added; “There could be nothing more public than the process that we had for the airport.

“We bent over backwards to provide the public the details.”

A report by overseas consultant LeighFisher last February found the terms and conditions of the airport contract with the Canadian Commercial Corporation and developers Aecon were “broadly consistent” with similar public-private deals.

The report also stated that the interest rate for long-term debt and the return on equity for Aecon were “within market range”.

But the LeighFisher report said the project was not competitively tendered, which could increase negotiating leverage, maintain competition and lead to best value for money.

The airport deal won the 2017 North American Deal of the Year at a ceremony in New York last year organised by London-based IJGlobal magazine, a leading specialist publication in project finance and construction.