'Walls' blocking Julien sleuth
Port Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
21 07 07
The Integrity Commission probe into allegations
of financial impropriety involving Chairman of
the Board of Governors and President of the University
of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT), Prof Kenneth S Julien
has been hamstrung by an artificial and bureaucratic
wall that has prevented Ag Assistant Commissioner
of Police, Wellington Virgil, from conducting a
proper investigation, sources have disclosed.
And now, ten months after Virgil was tasked to
investigate the management practices of UTT's top
boss, close friend, and former business partner
of Energy Minister Dr Lenny Saith, direct pressure
is being brought on the Integrity Commission to
close off the Julien probe.
The
Sunday Express understands that the Integrity
Commission investigators were told to put up a
finding or close off the Julien probe following
complaints that the delay in wrapping up the investigation
has caused "distress" and "disruption" to
Prof Julien and the State-funded university.
Sources, speaking on condition of strict anonymity,
told the Sunday Express that Julien and the UTT
used a series of manoeuvres to block the Integrity
investigation probe for six months. The delaying
tactics ranged from a demand to know what the complaint
being investigated was to the identity of the complainant
and finally on the old fall-back position that
the UTT was not subject to the Integrity in Public
Life legislation.
For
long months, the Commission's investigations,
led by the ex-Special Branch policeman, was denied
access to UTT's books and accounting records. And
even after investigators were finally allowed access
to some of the books, they were barred from interviewing
UTT staff. Integrity Commission Chairman John Martin
admits there were some hurdles getting the investigation
off the ground but yesterday noted that: "It
is still proceeding."
It
is the "how" that worry insiders,
who wondered why the Integrity Commission has so
far failed to use the full force of the Act to
make Prof Julien and the UTT compliant. Sources
said there continues to be a lot of tooing and
froing with the professor always out of reach of
the investigators.
Virgil was not immediately available for comment
but insiders report that he is frustrated by the
wall of bureaucracy thrown up by Julien and his
attorneys and the failure of promised resources
to the Commission's poorly-staffed Investigations
Department.
Virgil, the Integrity Commission's chief investigator,
received a formal brief to probe allegations contained
in a November 2006 Sunday Express Special Report
on the Julien-run UTT. After several threats of
litigation following the first in a series of articles,
Julien sued the paper in February this year.
And while the lawsuit effectively serves as a
gag, an ongoing Sunday Express investigation has
found that Julien has a US$4.2 million bank account
in the Guernsey Island managed exclusively by the
Trust Fund, HSBC International. It is understood
that the Guernsey account generates over US$200,000
a year in interest payments.
On Monday, High Court Judge Judith Jones ended
the debate on whether companies like UTT were exempt
from the declaration of filing requirements of
the Integrity legislation. She ruled that members
of the boards of all statutory bodies and State
enterprises, including those bodies in which the
State has a controlling interest, were caught by
the Act.
In 2005, the UTT mounted a legal challenge to
the Integrity in Public Life Act insisting that
its status as a non-profit company made it exempt
from the filing requirements of the Act.
The Julien-run UTT has so far failed to account
to parliament on the use of hundreds of millions
worth of public funds.
cmarajh@trinidadexpress.com
Story
By Camini Marajh of the Trinidad Express
Trinidad
Express
Wednesday, October 21st 2007
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