Roy Boyke, the political consultant who was paid by controversial hotelier John Jefferis to work for the Progressive Labour Party at the 1998 election, refused yesterday to discuss the secret deal.

And Premier Alex Scott also refused to confirm or deny the story, saying he didn't know who paid the Trinidadian to come and help the PLP win the 1998 election.revealed yesterday that Mr. Jefferis ? whose 2003 lease to run Government-owned Stonington Beach Hotel was slammed by Auditor General Larry Dennis as so unfair it should have been put out to tender again ? had secretly paid for Mr. Boyke to come to Bermuda to work for the PLP.

A PLP insider confirmed that Mr. Jefferis, who was then running the Coco Reef Hotel in Tobago, met former Tourism Minister David Allen shortly before the 1998 election and agreed to pick up the tab for Mr. Boyke to work for the party. The only expense the PLP had was Mr. Boyke's rent.

Mr. Jefferis was awarded the contract to operate the Bermuda College-owned Stonington Hotel in December 2002, but in June 2003, six months after he was selected, he signed a lease completely different from the basis on which he had been chosen which saved him millions of dollars in rent.

Mr. Jefferis also managed to get the lease extended from the agreed 21 years to 50, obtained a five year rent holiday not in the original proposal, secured a total of 5.9 acres of land not originally on offer ? including two oceanfront cottages ? and was given the right in his lease to build and sell condominiums which, again, had not been agreed on when he was selected.

The lease should have gone to Bermuda College Board of Governors to be ratified, said the Auditor General.

But instead, PLP politicians Raymond Tannock and Larry Mussenden ? the chairman and vice-chairman of the Board ? signed it in June 2003 without the other Board members approving it.

Mr. Dennis said because the Board had not approved the lease before it was signed, it could be challenged in the courts.

The United Bermuda Party said yesterday's revelations that Mr. Jefferis funded the PLP campaign raised further doubts about the propriety of the lease awarded to his company, Coco Reef, and said there should be a public inquiry into the matter.

And the party backed Mr. Dennis's call for the lease to be put out to tender again.

When yesterday asked Mr. Boyke if Mr. Jefferis paid him for the 1998 PLP work, he said: "I wouldn't discuss these things with the media whether it was John Jefferis or ? I wouldn't."

When asked if he was refusing to deny it, Mr. Boyke, who is now working as a consultant to Prime Minister of Antigua Baldwin Spencer, said: "I am refusing to discuss any arrangement I've had with any client."

Premier Alex Scott said yesterday: "I am not confirming or denying your story because we don't comment and have not been in the habit of commenting (on party funding).

"Many folks would want this to be done confidentially and I don't think any party would encourage (disclosing) who donates what."

When asked if he knew who paid for Mr. Boyke, Mr. Scott said: "I would have thought there could be two or three or four ways.

"There would be a series of expenses, housing and all sorts of expenses, and to say any one person funded ? I would have thought it was shared among several different accounts, but that's a guess."

Mr. Scott said although he was involved in the 1998 campaign, he was not privy to who paid Mr. Boyke.

Mr. Boyke was working for the Bermudian public relations company employed by the PLP in 1998, RF Communications, but the company has refused to return calls.

The PLP insider familiar with the arrangement said in yesterday's : "Roy Boyke came to Bermuda and the only expense the party had to pay was rent for his apartment, and that came through the PLP's contract with RF Communications.

"John Jefferis paid Boyke's way. I can triple assure you the PLP didn't pay and Boyke told me Jefferis was paying for him."

United Bermuda Party Leader Grant Gibbons said yesterday: "The revelations this morning that Mr. Jefferis helped to finance the PLP campaign in 1998 raise a further series of questions about the propriety of the lease with Coco Reef, a lease which appears to have been rushed through at the last minute before the 2003 election.

"It clearly suggests that there ought to be a full inquiry into the matter of the lease as this further undercuts the validity of the lease and tendering and negotiating process and is probably a good reason to have the lease re-tendered as the Auditor General has suggested."

A spokeswoman at Mr. Jefferis' Coco Reef Hotel on Tobago said yesterday that he was in Cuba.

She later said that having checked, Mr. Jefferis was still in Miami, but would be going to Cuba, although he was now going to San Andreas, which was off the coast of Nicaragua. She said it was unlikely he would be able to comment as he was travelling.