Mitchell Report questions Antiguan state energy company's decisions, writes Colm Keena

The Mitchell report looks at a number of transactions by the Antiguan Public Utilities Authority (APUA), including a second transaction with a slight link to Digicel. A series of controversies surrounding the authority and its board of commissioners appointed by a new government in Antigua, culminated in the sacking of the commission and the appointment of Judge Don Mitchell to investigate certain matters, in November 2005.

At the time the commission was sacked, it was organising an investigation into the possible theft of large amounts of authority funds prior to the appointment of the commission. Judge Mitchell recommended that this inquiry be continued with.

Judge Mitchell said "only the oldest citizens can remember a time when integrity in public office was expected as a norm" in Antigua.

One of the issues covered by his report concerned the purchase of two used electricity generators in Canada, for Antigua, by the minister for public works, Wilmoth Daniel, and the chairman of the commission, Rolston Potter. The multimillion dollar deal was negotiated without any professional advice.

Judge Mitchell said the two men were trying to deal with an urgent energy crisis but "they were not correct in their view or in the action that they took... undeserved allegations of corruption proliferated and circulated".

The report also dealt with cable television. For 50 years CTV, a company owned by the family of the former prime minister, had a monopoly on cable TV in Antigua. The chairman of the commission, Mr Potter, was a friend of Kelly Glass, a man in St Vincent who had cable TV interests in a number of Caribbean islands. Mr Glass is also a 9 per cent shareholder in three of Digicel's eastern Caribbean operations.

In September 2004, the new government said it had rescinded the CTV monopoly. Mr Glass and Mr Potter had set up a new Antiguan TV cable company, KaribCable, with Mr Potter owning 25 per cent.

Mr Potter was a personal friend and political associate of Mr Daniel, according to Judge Mitchell. He said Mr Potter should not have been appointed chairman of the commission when the poles, ducts and towers owned by the APUA electricity network were of such interest to Mr Potter's cable company.

Mr Potter proposed to cabinet that use of the APUA infrastructure be given to the cable TV company "at very advantageous rates," according to Judge Mitchell. The proposal was accepted, without advice being sought.

Judge Mitchell said Mr Potter appeared not to have known of the connection between Mr Glass and Digicel. "Nor was he aware of or interested in the telecommunications uses that Digicel could make of the KaribCable conduits when and if they chose to do so."

A spokeswoman for Digicel said suggestions that KaribCable will benefit in the future from Digicel is "speculative and based on no substantial fact".