Nova Scotia cabinet minister Ernie Fage resigned Thursday in a cloud of controversy after witnesses accused him of leaving the scene of a car accident in late November.

Fage, the province's human resources minister, said Thursday that he told police he was involved in "a minor accident" -- but he declined to offer details.

Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald said he didn't know Fage waited seven days to report the accident to the police until he saw a news report Thursday night.

MacDonald said Fage offered his resignation because he didn't want to be a distraction for the government. But the premier declined to comment on exactly what Fage told him. He also refused to comment on witness accounts that Fage allegedly left the scene of the accident smelling of alcohol.

"When you're dealing with the appropriate authorities, it would be inappropriate for me to make any such comment on the incident," MacDonald told reporters.

"I've shared with you all the information that he had."

MacDonald said Fage first told him about the accident "shortly before Christmas."

The accident happened shortly after midnight on a rainy November 24. George Myrer and Steve Bezanson, employees with the sports department of the Halifax Chronicle Herald newspaper, were stopped at a traffic light when their vehicle was hit from behind.

Myrer said he and Bezanson got out of their vehicle to talk to the other driver, and that he allegedly could smell alcohol on him. Myrer said he asked the driver for information, but that the man drove off a few minutes later, before police arrived.

Professional photographer David Gamble was driving by the scene and witnessed the crash. He also said he saw the driver leaving the scene.

Gamble followed the driver to a nearby apartment building and took video and photographs using his cellphone that he later provided to CTV News and other media outlets.

"When I was videotaping him, I was standing right beside him when he was unlocking the key to the elevator,'' Gamble said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

"There's no doubt in my mind he smelled like alcohol. I was a bartender in the Canadian navy for two years. I've served a lot of people alcohol. I know exactly what it smells like.''

Myrer said the force of the collision tore off most of his back bumper and caused $3,500 in damages.

None of the men recognized the driver on the night of the accident.

This marks the second time in less than a year that Fage, 53, has resigned from cabinet.

The Conservative minister resigned last February over a conflict of interest about a $250,000 government loan that cabinet approved to a company Fage's family does business with. He made it back into cabinet in June after he was re-elected in his riding of Cumberland North.

Fage defended himself by claiming he had forgotten to inform cabinet colleagues of his conflict of interest when the loan to S&J potato farms was approved.

With reports from CTV Atlantic and The Canadian Press