PAY FIRST. QUESTION LATER.

Premier explains costly arbitration lesson after years of legal battles over InterHealth Canada bills

By Deandrea Hamilton | Editor

PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos Islands — The Turks and Caicos Islands has learned the hard way that when it came to the InterHealth Canada hospital agreement, successive governments could question the bills—but they still had to pay them first. It is an expensive lesson which has cost the country tens of millions of dollars in arbitration, legal fees and disputed invoices, and one Premier Charles Washington Misick finally laid out in detail during a ministerial statement in the House of Assembly on July 31.

A day earlier, the Progressive Democratic Movement (PDM) had stunned the country with its own assessment of the hospital arrangement, saying nearly $1 billion had already been spent under the agreement, approximately $60 million remained outstanding on the original hospital loan and a fresh arbitration exposed taxpayers to even more financial risk. Opposition Leader Douglas Parnell warned that time was rapidly running out.

“There are only 80 days remaining before this agreement expires. This crisis is happening now, and I’m not going to allow this present healthcare crisis affecting the people of these islands to be brushed aside or buried beneath arguments about decisions made nearly 20 years ago or statements of false comfort.”

On Friday, the Premier responded with what he described as “a full and frank account” of the hospital project and the Government’s handling of the dispute.

“The people deserve honesty. They deserve to understand how we arrived at this moment, what it has cost them, and what this Government is doing about it.”

While Premier Misick disputed the Opposition’s estimate of the Territory’s current arbitration exposure, he did not dispute that the legal battles have come at an extraordinary cost. Instead, he disclosed that the first arbitration alone cost the country approximately $39.7 million in damages, legal fees and arbitration expenses, while confirming that a second arbitration remains active and that the Government has already been ordered to pay approximately $9.3 million in disputed invoices as that case continues.

The Premier explained that the costly cycle was built into the agreement itself.

“The concession agreement required Government to continue making payments while disputes proceeded to arbitration,” he told Parliament, explaining that the legal framework effectively required the Government to pay first and dispute later.

For many watching, the Premier’s statement was the first detailed public explanation of why taxpayers continued paying millions while the Government simultaneously challenged the invoices in court and arbitration.

Looking ahead, Misick made it clear that the Government’s focus is no longer only on defending lawsuits but on ending the arrangement altogether. He said an active transition is underway to return the hospitals to public control while also seeking reforms to international arbitration rules that he believes unfairly disadvantage small island states facing complex commercial disputes.

The Premier closed by setting out what he said is the Government’s objective for the future.

“This Government will resolve the concession. It will reclaim the hospitals. And it will build a healthcare system worthy of the trust that our people place in it.”

Whether that plan ultimately succeeds remains to be seen. But after years of legal battles, arbitration rulings and mounting public concern, the country now has its clearest explanation yet of why the bills kept coming—even while they were being disputed—and what the Government says it intends to do to finally bring one of the Turks and Caicos Islands’ most expensive public contracts to an end.