CATEGORY:INTERESTING DEVELOPMENT
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Bt Trevor Thwaites
Inside Grenada correspondent
Saturday December 09,2006


ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada - Energy Minister, the Hon Gregory Bowen, has been asked to step down from office as a government minister, following allegations that he asked for a bribe to allow oil and gas exploration to take place in the country’s maritime waters in 1996.

The government and Grynberg Petroleum Company (owned by Jack Grynberg) in 1996 signed an agreement to explore for gas and natural oil, however, the agreement was terminated in 2004.

At a recent press conference in the city, the Energy minister said that the agreement was terminated because Grynberg was interfering with and disrupting the negotiations for the delimitation of the boundaries that was taking place between Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela. However, in a law suit filed by the Law Firm of Daniel Abraham of New York, Grynberg is claiming damages of US$500 million against Bowen and three Russian nationals.

In the suit, Grynberg claims that Bowen had asked him for a significant bribe for him to do business in Grenada. The Energy minister, however, has dismissed the claim, saying that he never personally met Grynberg. The issue generated much debate over GBN’s ‘Beyond the Headlines’ television programme sometime ago with panelists lawyer Lloyd Noel and editor of the Spice Isle Review Newspaper Bernard Jones, calling for Bowen to step down from office to allow a proper investigation to take place.

Noel presented information from several documentations, which he said was proof that Bowen and Grynberg were closely involved during the negotiations. As they put it Bowen had committed an “unjustifiable inexactitude”. Jones said that it is normal that during such inquiries, the accused step down from office to allow a full and thorough investigation to occur. He particularly wanted be appraised of the minister’s whereabouts in 1996, because he claims that Bowen, during the period, had gone to Russia to meet the three Russian businessmen in question.

However, another of the panelists’, editor of the Grenadian Voice Newspaper Leslie Pierre, held a different View. He does not believe the allegations are strong enough for the minister to step down from office. In the face of strong arguments from Jones, Noel and callers to the programmers, Pierre stood firm to his belief that the documents presented by Noel were not sufficient to prove the minister was not telling the truth. “They are simply allegations he said”.

Bowen, at a recent press conference in the city, maintained his innocence amid several questions from reporters about his association with Grynberg that he did not personally met him even though they were in contact. In fact, he said that he was expecting the law suit four months ago because Grynberg was incensed after the government failed to renew the contract. He said that a good response had been prepared for the matter which will be arbitrated in London.