OPPOSITION Leader Bruce Golding has placed the issue of the salvaging of rich treasures believed to be still aboard Spanish galleons that sank more than 300 years ago in Jamaica’s south coast waters, back on Parliament’s agenda.

Golding on Tuesday tabled several questions in the House of Representatives seeking answers from Minister of Tourism, Entertainment and Culture Aloun Assamba about a search for the treasure by Admiralty Corporation – an operating subsidiary of US-based Admiralty Holdings. This search ended abruptly after five years.

Admiralty was granted the licence in controversial circumstances in 1999. The abrupt end to the search was the result of a row which developed between Admiralty and the government in 2005 over the salvaging of a bounty estimated then to be worth about US$1.2 billion.

Admiralty claimed then that the bounty could be brought to the surface, if it could only disengage from “bureaucratic entanglements” imposed by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust (JNHT).

The trust insisted that the company, among other things, needed to find an approved director of archeology; the director needed to prepare and submit an operations plan for the scope of work to be done; the company needed to employ a conservator to take care of any artifacts found; finalise and get approved a fisherman’s awareness plan; and pay performance, conservation and preservation bonds as required by their licence.

Admiralty pulled out instead, in 2005 and since then nothing has been heard about the treasure.

However, Golding has asked the following questions of Assamba:

. Will the Minister advise what was the outcome of the search for sunken treasure conducted by Admiralty Corporation off the south coast of Jamaica under a licence granted by the government in 1999?

. Has a value been determined for the treasures that may have been located?

. Has the government taken any decision with regard to further searches being conducted, or retrieving such treasure as may have been located?

At the time of the Admiralty pull-out, Maxine Henry-Wilson was the minister of culture. However, since March, 2006, Assamba has assumed the portfolio.

This is not the first time that Golding has raised the issue of the treasure hunt. In 1999 – when he led the National Democratic Movement (NDM) – he raised strong objection “to the clandestine manner in which the government has granted a licence to Admiralty Corporation to recover treasures from Jamaican waters”. In a statement issued at the time, Golding expressed alarm that the government’s long-established policy regarding historic wrecks was changed to facilitate the deal without the Parliament or the public being made aware of the change.

Golding said then, that the proper procedure would have been for any policy changes to be presented to Parliament, and for the government to signify its willingness to consider appropriate proposals for the recovery of treasures and artifacts.