ROY Boyke, the shadowy Trinidadian political consultant who engineered the Progressive Labour Party's controversial "Don't Go Back To The Plantation" 2003 re-election campaign, has been sacked as a counsellor to Antigua's ruling United Progressive Party he helped to elect in 2004 after a decades-long spell in the political wilderness.

Mr. Boyke, a sometime journalist, music promoter and Caribbean-area election campaign strategist, was forced to resign last month after his presence in the Antiguan civil service threatened to prompt resignations from the Antigua Cabinet.

Aside from working on the PLP's election campaigns in 1998 and 2003, Mr. Boyke was appointed to a Tourism Ministry post for a brief spell in 2001/2 and has been publicly linked to the controversial sweetheart lease given to John Jefferis to operate Government-owned Coco Reef (formerly Stonington Beach) Hotel.

Mr. Jefferis had secretly funded Mr. Boyke's work on the PLP's victorious 1998 election campaign and it has been suggested the grace-and-favour Stonington lease was the for the hotelier's covert contributions.

Mr. Boyke's enforced resignation resulted from a major political crisis in Antigua and an open split in the UPP Cabinet over his role as "in-house Rasputin" to that country's Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer.

Antiguan Cabinet insiders told Caribbean Net News that many in the Cabinet have long been upset with Mr. Boyke participating in Cabinet deliberations, as he did not hold elected office and was a Trinidadian.

But in a statement following the announcement of Boyke's resignation, Prime Minister Spencer ? who first hired Mr. Boyke as an election consultant and then appointed him to a role as government advisor ? said: "I feel a sense of personal remorse at the injustice meted out to this honourable man, who was always a counsellor, never competitor, to any member of the Cabinet or the party." Antiguan political commentator Arvel Grant said in a column titled "The Roy Boyke Effect" that ran in the that Mr. Boyke's "humiliating departure" from the country's corridors of power stemmed from two factors ? mounting Antiguan anger at "foreign influence" on the nation's internal affairs combined with the consultant's "arrogant and ongoing acquisition of political power".

"Distressing signals came to light within days of the election when it appeared that Boyke was actually directing the process of Ministerial selections and appointments," said Mr. Grant.

"One got the impression that several of the victorious UPP candidates were reduced to learning of their roles in government from Boyke. It was also suggested that Boyke seemed to (single-handedly) produce the first Throne Speech.

"Whether or not those claims were true, the impression making the rounds at the time was that the newly elected UPP government was being directed by a consultant from Trinidad.

"The signals became so distressing that efforts were made to alert the government of the disquiet so they could at least clarify the situation publicly.

"Nevertheless, Boyke continued his rise to near 'absolute' power at the heart of the newly-elected UPP administration.

"Eventually, it became public knowledge that Boyke seemed a permanent fixture in the Cabinet. Later, many in the UPP begun to chatter about apparent demands made by some Ministers to know of the financial arrangements offered to Boyke.

"The chatter became louder when it was alleged the terms of his engagement would remain private, not even to be known by most members of the Cabinet. As a political analyst, I knew those developments made for the political equivalent of 'the devil's brew'.

"What I did not imagine, was that the circumstances of Boyke's role in the government would have such cataclysmic effects. The humiliating manner of his departure is bad enough. However, what is really serious is the legacy (public perceptions of corruption) which he would have left behind."

Mr. Boyke, who worked on the PLP's victorious 1998 election campaign, was later hired by Bermuda's late Tourism Minister David Allen as a "media consultant" for the Tourism Department in the run-up to the 2003 election although his terms of reference were never made clear.

Then Shadow Tourism Minister David Dodwell accused Mr. Allen in the House of Assembly of hiring Mr. Boyke at taxpayer's expense to in fact strategise the PLP's re-election campaign rather than to shake-up Bermuda's tourism marketing efforts.

At the time Mr. Boyke rejected United Bermuda Party claims that although he was employed as a Tourism Department consultant, he would actually be helping the PLP.

Mr. Boyke said he would resign his Tourism contract if he was asked to work for the PLP because it would create a conflict of interest.

And he said the tax-payer would not foot the bill for any political work he might do in Bermuda.

But Mr. Dodwell said: "Despite what Roy Boyke said, I am not at all convinced that his presence here is as free of connection to the upcoming election as he says it is. My information is one of the things he is looking at is the poor relationship that exists between the back bench and the Premier (Jennifer Smith) and her front bench. Quite how you justify that as a job for Tourism is a mystery to me."

Last year it was revealed that Mr. Boyke's introduction to the PLP had been engineered by John Jefferis, a naturalised Bermudian who now runs a luxury hotel in Trinidad & Tobago and who was controversially awarded a grace-and-favour contract to run Stonington Beach Hotel ? now the Coco Reef.

"Only last month it came to light that the Government-operated Bermuda College had still been paying the utility bills at its former hotel school ? resulting in savings to Mr. Jefferis that would amount to tens of thousands of dollars annually.

Mr. Jefferis, whose lease at Government-owned Stonington Beach Hotel was branded unfair by the Auditor General, secretly funded Mr. Boyke to work as a consultant for the PLP at the 1998 election. A senior PLP insider familiar with the arrangement told last year that Mr. Jefferis paid for Mr. Boyke to work for the party.

Only a handful of top PLP figures knew who financed the arrangement, and Calvin Smith, the chairman of the party's campaign committee in 1998, said yesterday he had no idea who paid for Mr. Boyke.

Mr. Jefferis, a naturalised Bermudian who was running the Coco Reef Hotel in Tobago at the time, knew Mr. Boyke and agreed to pay for him to come to Bermuda after meeting the then-Shadow Tourism Minister David Allen shortly before the election, said the source.

Mr. Boyke was working for RF Communications, the Bermuda public relations firm employed by the PLP during the 1998 general election.

The senior PLP source told : "Before the election David Allen was on holiday in Tobago and met Jefferis, they were friends.

"The deal was Jefferis knew Roy Boyke was a political consultant in the Caribbean specialising in taking out incumbent governments. He also knew that for the 1993 election Boyke was suggested for the United Bermuda Party. Jefferis said to David Allen that he would pay all Boyke's fees to be a political consultant to the PLP.

"Roy Boyke came to Bermuda and the only expense the party had to pay was his rent for an 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.

"The party never had a clue how much it was because we had a contract with RF Communications and nothing with Boyke.

"I don't think anyone in the PLP knows how much Boyke was paid because there was never a bill, no retainer, nothing."

Jefferis applied to run the Stonington Beach Hotel when Government put it out to tender in 2002, but a Bermuda College committee rejected him and five other companies in favour of a bid from Bermuda Resort Hotels (BRH).

The decision was never announced publicly, however. Government then transferred the loss-making hotel from the Department of Education to Tourism to save it being a drain on the College and set about re-tendering the lease.

BRH was headed by Billy Griffith, who was then on the College Board.

College president Dr. Michael Orenduff said at the time the re-tendering was to ensure there was no perception of any conflicts of interest.

This time Mr. Jefferis, a former general manager of Elbow Beach Hotel, was picked in December 2002 by a team of civil servants from Tourism and Education as well as Philip Butterfield of the Bank of Bermuda and a Californian hotel consultant, Jerry Morrison.

But after his selection, he managed to save himself millions of dollars in rent by dramatically renegotiating the lease with a company set up to transfer the hotel out.

He ended up paying less than originally set out in the heads of agreement document and getting a five-year, rent-free holiday; more than doubled the lease from 21 years to 50 years; acquired 5.9 acres of land and two ocean front cottages that were not in the original proposal; and was given permission to build and sell condominiums which were also not part of the original proposal upon which he was selected.

Between January 2003 and June 2003, Mr. Jefferis negotiated all the contentious changes to the lease with the Stonington Beach Company, which had been set up to finalise details. It consisted of, among others, former Tourism Director Judith Hall-Bean, Education Director Michelle Khaldun, chair of Bermuda College Board of Governors Raymond Tannock, and it was chaired by lawyer Paul King.

The lease then had to go to the Ministry of Tourism and be endorsed by the entire Cabinet.

The lease was signed in June, 2004 by Mr. Tannock, who is now a PLP Senator, and deputy chair of the College Board, Attorney General Larry Mussenden, without going to the the Board for approval.

The lease was heavily criticised by Auditor General Larry Dennis, who said the lease signed was so radically different from that envisaged in the heads of terms offer when Mr. Jefferis was selected that it was unfair and should have been re-tendered.

He said the process up until Mr. Jefferis was selected was in accordance with Government policy, but the final lease executed had so many material differences that "the tendering process was effectively compromised".

Mr. Dennis said businesses would not bother wasting their time tendering for Government contracts if they did not think the process was open and fair, leading to Government not getting best value for money.

He also said because the Board had responsibility for approving contracts, the lease could be challenged in the courts.