ATTEMPTS by Faith-Based Tourism organiser Andre Curtis to explain how he is spending a $400,000 Government grant have led to more questions than answers, it has been claimed.And yesterday, former Opposition Leader Wayne Furbert accused Premier Ewart Brown of allowing Mr. Curtis to “fleece the public” — by spending half the grant on his own salary.

Mr. Curtis, who is also Dr. Brown’s campaign chairman, held a press conference on Monday after it was revealed he received more than $190,000 from Government in April — but had failed to spend any of it on faith-based events.

Instead, bank statements showed he had paid most of the funds into private bank accounts or other business interests.

On Monday, Mr. Curtis insisted that he had lined up ten tourism events for the coming year, which has cost him $200,000. It is understood the remainder of the Government grant is being spent on salaries incurred by Mr. Curtis and his administrative team.

The businessman produced a list of the ten scheduled events, but no evidence that they would go ahead.

Asked why events scheduled to take place in the coming months had still not been advertised on the Department of Tourism web site, Mr. Curtis replied: “These things take time.”

And he acknowledged that some of the events on his list were being organised by independent church groups with no involvement from him.

But yesterday, Mr. Furbert said that, at best, Mr. Curtis was acting as nothing more than a needless “middle man” tasked with dispensing cash to religious groups who did the bulk of the organising themselves. Therefore, he claimed, an annual salary of $200,000 was totally unjustified.

He pointed out that one of the conferences on Mr. Curtis’ list — the Women of Vision Empowering a Nation conference next February — was being organised by Rev. Marilyn Lambe of the First Church of God. Rev. Lambe has confirmed that FBT has nothing to do with the organisation of the conference.

“This is basically an opportunity for the Premier to give money to his campaign chairman,” Mr. Furbert said.

“I question whether the money that’s given to him as a salary for a job that doesn’t involve that much work.”

Mr. Furbert said church groups organising a concert or seminar could approach the Department of Tourism for support directly if they believed their event was attracting foreign visitors.

He added that, under that system, all religious groups would have a chance of securing funding, and none of the $400,000 would be wasted on salaries. “The purpose of Faith-Based Tourism was for Government to support faith-based organisations through grants. Let’s say Church A was organising an event. They could go to the Department of Tourism saying that the event could bring in overseas visitors.

“The Ministry of Tourism could then say ‘Yes, this meets our criteria’ and approve it. The Accountant General would then sign off a cheque. There shouldn’t be any administration fees given out — and certainly not $200,000 worth. Where are the checks and balances? Where’s the accountability? There’s no logic to running it this way.”

Mr. Furbert also accused Government of misleading the House of Assembly when it announced in February’s Budget that funding for the scheme would be doubled.

Last year FBT was given $200,000 — although according to both Government and Mr. Curtis, all the cash went to religious groups and none of it was spent on administration costs or salaries.

“It was said that funding was being increased from $200,000 to $400,000 over last year,” Mr. Furbert said.

“That gave totally the wrong impression because the reality is the organisations are still only getting $200,000 — the additional $200,000 is going to Mr. Curtis.

“It was stated that $400,000 was going towards faith-based groups but never was it made clear that $200,000 of that would be going towards salaries and administration fees.

“Mr. Curtis walks around as though he’s Superfly and it makes me very angry because he’s just fleecing the public — and is being helped by the Premier.”