Premier Ewart Brown’s political campaigner is contracted to receive $400,000 of taxpayers’ money to set up ten faith-based tourism events in a year, according to a document received by The Royal Gazette.

However, neither Andre Curtis, the Premier nor the Department of Tourism could point to any events which have either taken place or are in the pipeline for 2007-08, other than a women’s conference next February.

Dr. Brown, who is also Tourism Minister, denies allegations that he set up the scheme to get cash to Mr. Curtis as a thank you gesture for running his constituency in Warwick South Central.

Mr. Curtis has repeatedly refused to answer questions over the initiative. Last night, former Opposition Leader Wayne Furbert reiterated his call for Mr. Curtis or the Premier to come clean over how the cash is being spent and asked: “What are these ten events?”

A draft contract forwarded to this newspaper, dated February 20 this year, states Harvest Investment Holdings — of which Mr. Curtis is chairman — is being paid $400,000 to set up ten get-togethers in a 12-month period.

That figure was confirmed by the Ministry of Tourism.

The document includes a breakdown of the cash payable to the company — with a quarter of it due immediately on the signing of the contract.

It states that Mr. Curtis must deliver 2,200 visitors to Bermuda through a minimum of ten faith-based multi-day events between April 1 this year and March 31, 2008.

At least one event, it says, should take place in April, May, July, August, September, October, February and March. It adds that information on each should be provided to the Department of Tourism six months in advance, and posted on bermudatourism.com.

The only faith-based project mentioned on bermudatourism.com is a women’s conference in Hamilton, featuring speakers from Oklahoma, from February 14 to 18, 2008.

When contacted by this newspaper, Mr. Curtis said he was in a meeting. When asked if the reporter could call back later, he said not if it was about faith-based tourism. Under the terms of the contract, Mr. Curtis is barred from speaking to the media about faith-based tourism.

Despite being asked for information a number of times this week, the Department of Tourism has failed to reveal how many events had been organised, with a spokeswoman saying she was seeking information on an itinerary.

Dr. Brown, who has previously refused to discuss the matter further until the next Parliamentary session begins in November, is currently off the Island and unavailable for comment. His Press Secretary, Glenn Jones, said he was unable to say whether anything had been set up or was due to take place.

Mr. Furbert, a professed Christian who says he strongly believes in the principle of faith-based tourism, said: “I don’t think the money given by the Ministry to Curtis has been accounted for and spent wisely.

“He is supposed to deliver ten events. What are they? How much of that $400,000 has he received?

“As far as I’m concerned, this whole thing is a thank you gesture to Curtis for helping out the Premier. People want answers. The Minister himself should come forward.”

A Ministry of Tourism spokesman said: “The agreement between the BDOT and Harvest sets out a regime of deliverables and objectives which must be met before any payments can be made under the contract.

“Those deliverables are verified by the BDOT at each stage and payments made in accordance with established practice.”

He explained Mr. Curtis had been chosen to spearhead faith-based tourism because of the success of a number of “tremendously popular” events when he was chairman of the Tourism Board last year.

These included the Bermuda Super Soulfest, the Bermuda SonFest, the Bridge The Gap Convention and Taking It To The Streets.

“Mr. Curtis dedicated tremendous energy and enthusiasm to this project and, with the generation of 2,500 visitors, the BDOT naturally believed it was important to continue the momentum of this success,” said the spokesman.

He said that 1,000 faith-based visitors had already been to Bermuda this year, but was unable to confirm whether those figures referred to this financial year (since April, when Mr. Curtis’ contract began) or this calendar year (since January).

Mr. Furbert disputed the statistics, saying: “I question whether they have had 2,500 visitors coming to these events last year and there’s no churches that have had any functions bringing 1,000 people this year.”