By INDERIA SAUNDERS, Guardian Business Desk, inderia@nasguard.com

Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham answered months of speculation surrounding the government's 7.5 percent stake in the Grand Bahama Port Authority last week, conceding there exist some uncertainty about ownership while reserving the right to influence decision-making based on the historical record.

The nation's head last week said it was "believed" that the government sold the shares, however there was now a mystery about how that sale may have taken place.

"The government is not now as certain (of) its right to the ownership of the shares," he told reporters last Friday, "but the government has said in court that it is the owner of record of 7.5 percent of the shares of the Grand Bahama Port Authority.

"The government reserves its position with respect to that 7.5 percent position and the extent to which the owners of the port are unwilling or are unable to settle their dispute, being the registered owners of the 92.5 percent of the shares, will help to influence at what point the government asserts what it considers to be a legal right."

His statements follow a Nassau Guardian article suggesting the government transferred that asset to the Royal Bank of Canada in 1970 in order to pay down an overdraft. Speaking on condition of anonymity, several people currently in government or having previously held "significant" positions, suggested the government is in name only the owner of the shares despite a transfer having taken place more than 30 years ago.

Last week, Ingraham took a stab at explaining the mystery of the government's shares, saying that up to 1980 it was clear that the government continued to act like it owned the shares and continued to appoint directors and proxies to act at shareholders meeting.

"The company continued to put in public record and internal record that the government owned 7.5 percent of the Port Authority," he said. "The government for some reason discontinued sometime between 1980 and 1982 acting as though it owned any shares."

This official version of events don't necessarily differ from a submission made on behalf of the Attorney General to the Supreme Court last February insisting that the government remained a registered shareholder in the GBPA.

The government department was invited by the court to make the submission as part of the ongoing ownership dispute between Jack Hayward and the family of his late partner, Edward St. George.

The six-paged document offers the AG's take on the best way to resolve the continuing battle. Still, those comments were largely limited to calling for the removal of court-appointed receivers and the re-activation of the Port's board of directors.

Last February, that same month, Supreme Court Justice Neville Adderley did just that. Another judge is expected to soon again take up the question of what stake Hayward owns in the companies controlling the quasi-governmental authority.

Questions surrounding the government's own Port Authority shares came to the fore two months ago, with the current Minister of State for Finance Zhivargo Laing arguing the 7.5-percent stake was sold back to either Hayward or St. George. He asserts that there is nothing pointing to the government continuing to receive income from any such asset.