The lease between Coco Reef Resort and Bermuda College was yesterday made public for the first time.

Education Minister El James said he was not required to table the lease by law, but he was making it public to illustrate there was nothing to hide.

The lease has been the subject of much controversy in the last decade.

Mr. James said he was against tabling it as the move would set a precedent.

Shadow Education Minister Grant Gibbons disagreed with that position.

The property on which the Coco Reef resort sits is owned by the Bermuda College board of governors. The college is publicly funded.

The Education Minister said that because the land is owned by the board and not the Government of Bermuda, it is not part of an existing law which requires Parliament to approve any lease of Government land for more than 21 years. Coco Reef currently has a 125-year lease.

"Although I continue to be of the firm belief that there is no legal requirement to table the lease in the House of Assembly, I am also of the belief that the lease contains nothing that should be secret or hidden," he said.

"Consequently, I will make a copy of the lease available to any Member who wishes one, but I will not be formally tabling the document."

Yesterday Mr. James said some of the pertinent details of the lease included the fact that the board has given its support to the resort building leaseback condos and the lease has been increased to 125 years.

The board will also support the Special Development Order for the construction of the leaseback units.

He added: "The base rent by the tenant is set at $200,000 per year until the end of April 2013. The rent then increases to $250,000 per year until the end of April 2018. Further rent increases to the end of the lease are detailed in the lease.

"The tenant also pays turnover rent which is defined as 20 percent of the gross annual profit. To date, the hotel has not made a profit, based on audited financial statements received."

The lease was signed in 2003 and renegotiated in 2009.

Earlier this year, board chairman Walton Brown outlined areas of the lease but did make the full document public. Both the United Bermuda Party and Bermuda Democratic Alliance called for greater transparency; the UBP asked Parliamentary Questions about the contents of the lease in February, which had gone unanswered until now.

Yesterday Sen. Brown said: "I am pleased with the Minister's decision regarding the lease. We are happy and see it as an obligation to share such information."

Dr. Gibbons, who has long been calling for the lease to be tabled, said he was pleased with the decision to make it public. He said he believed the Government was required to do so.

Following yesterday's meeting of the House of Assembly he said he believed the Bermuda College land was never intended to be leased out to private firms for such a lengthy period.

"At the time the 1974 Bermuda College Act was drafted, other large Government properties would have been held primarily by Works and Engineering or the West End Development Corporation and by their statutes, were effectively limited to 21-year leases and they were not allowed to dispose of property without getting the permission of the Legislature," he said. "The intent of Parliament was clearly to maintain strict control over land sales and leases."

He added that when Government reviewed the Works and Engineering Act and the West End Development Corporation Act in 2006 they did not alter the clause requiring parliamentary approval for any lease over 21 years.

"Since then we have had the Park Hyatt Act and I gather will soon see a '9 Beaches Act' which provides parliamentary approval for leasing public [Government] property for more than 21 years.

"So I find it hard to believe, given Parliament's broad restrictions on land dispositions then and now, that Bermuda College was somehow intentionally permitted to sell or lease all, or a portion of, their property with no time limits to anyone they wished with only ministerial approval.

"It's not right and it doesn't make sense. But that's the argument that the Minister of Education is making.

"I have to believe there is sufficient precedent in the other landholding legislation, particularly the Works and Engineering Act, that morally requires more disclosure to Parliament and more accountability with public property than simple ministerial or College Board approval."

He added that he still believed the 2003 lease was a "complete betrayal by this Government of the original intentions of the college founders".

The lease agreement between the two entities has been under scrutiny since 2003 when Government granted former Elbow Beach managing director John Jefferis a 50-year lease to manage the former Stonington Beach Hotel.

After winning the tender, Mr. Jefferis was able to renegotiate the terms of the lease, it doubled from 21 years to 50 while the rent to Government was reduced.

A 2004 Auditor General's report recommended the lease should be re-tendered because it was "considerably more beneficial" to Mr. Jefferis than the tender document specified. The details of the original lease were never tabled in the House of Parliament.