Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit spent the entire day on the on the witness stand Tuesday fending off questions about his competence and leadership style with defiant assertions that his government is the legitimate owner of 51% of the controversial Shangri-La International Development Holdings.
For two hours on Monday and five and a half hours on Tuesday, Skerrit was under fire from British QC Paul Chaisty, lead attorney for Rich Victory, the parent company that promised to give its majority Shangri-La shares to government but then mysteriously changed its mind. He ended the day on the stand with a half an hour cross examination from Dominican born QC Reggie Armour, lead attorney for the claimant Sino Union. Tactically, Armour went into damage control mode for the Prime Minister and Sino Union’s Felix Chen with a line of questioning directed at the sincerity and credibility of the lead defence witnesses.
The Dominica leader’s testimony is part of the BVI court battle to correct the share register of the Shangri-La in order to have the government of Dominica replace Rich Victory of Dominica’s former Ambassador to Beijing David Hsiu, as the major shareholder.
Chaisty grilled Skerrit on his role in the failed attempt to establish an international high school at Layou, the failure of government to have its alleged 51% Shangri-La shareholding registered and his working relationships with the former investment buddies turned arch rivals Hsiu and Chen.
The defense attorney painted a picture of a Prime Minister committing his government to ownership in a private company without any due diligence on the other shareholders and without any clue as to whether the company was debt ridden or insolvent.
He also raised numerous questions about the seriousness of the claim to the Shangri-La shares by a Prime Minister who felt that his “government owned them since February 2006”; signed letters and gave instructions as the majority shareholder; but did nothing about legally registering the interest “for 21 months”.
Chaisty paid great attention to completion of the international high school and the request for an unqualified audit report on the finances of the Shangri-La as conditions to be met before the shares were granted.
In response, Skerrit repeatedly stated that he was not aware of any conditions placed on the grant of the shares as compensation for the fact the David Hsiu and company had failed to deliver the international high school as promised. With regard to his request in writing for an unqualified audit of the Shangri-La, Skerrit insisted that this was solely intended to facilitate the shareholders’ meeting and not as a condition for the handing over the shares.
While the Prime Minster stated throughout that he relied heavily on the advice and guidance of Hsiu and accountant Kieron Pinard-Byrne, there were a number of occasions when he was forced to admit that they had misrepresented him in written correspondence.
He “categorically” denied receiving certain documents from Pinard-Byrne and having certain conversations as alleged with the man who has perfected the art of wearing numerous hats with no apparent concern about conflict of interest.
In this saga, as the evidence continues to reveal, Pinard-Byrne was advisor to both Skerrit and Hsiu, letter writer for both sides, escrow agent for the share transfer instrument, auditor, mediator and expert on share transfer conditions and cancellation.
About his former envoy in Beijing, Skerrit told the court:
“I relied heavily on David Hsiu. He was my personal advisor. I trusted him… whoever Mr. Hsiu brought to me (as an investor) I would have accepted… Mr. Hsiu was the main negotiator in the establishment of relations between Dominica and China… If he advised me badly then he can say that.”
Skerrit was nonetheless worried that public perceptions of Hsiu regarding his conduct in facilitating the Layou River investment project could have triggered major political fallout:
“The impression in the minds of people was that my ambassador had swindled Mr. Chen of 20 million US dollars and I was protecting Mr. Hsiu and Mr. Chen wanted to proceed with the project but Mr. Hsiu was frustrating it and I was supporting him…”
Skerrit does not agree it was a political crisis as described by Hsiu in his aide memoir following the October 2007 Las Vegas meeting to “strategize on a defence” in light of the concern that “Mr. Chen had taken the issue” to the Prime Minister’s “political enemies”.
But the Dominica Labour Party leader was convinced that something needed to be done about it.
“So we had agreed to pay back Mr. Chen his 20 million dollars… the money would come from Mr. Wu – a businessman in Macau… we would pay off Mr. Chen, get him out of the picture and develop the projects proposed for Clarke Hall and Portsmouth…”
Skerrit was adamant that while he met with Hsiu at the Dorchester Hotel in London in February 2008, he never told his then ambassador that he was no longer interested in the Shangri-La shares and had therefore signed a letter to that effect.
On day three of the trial Wednesday, the attention shifts to the testimony of Felix Chen who controls a 40% share of the Shangri-La equity and who filed the BVI court action that has allowed government to stake its claim to majority ownership of Shangri-La.
Prime Minister Skerrit returns to Dominica Wednesday afternoon to finalize preparation for this week’s presentation of the 2009/2010 budget.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
It seems to me that some people were waiting for PM Skerrit to crumble under cross examination in the BVI. That did not happen, so other strategies are being used.
Lennox was not in the BVI to support Dominica but to witness Skerrit crumble under cross examination, he was thoroughly dissapointed, he had to admit that the PM was consistent.
Now Mr Castro, I wonder how you know and so sure what lennox was in the BVI to do. You see, these are the kind of things that makes me wonder about you guys. Lennox was in the BVI to document and report back to the people what went on in the BVI. What did happen was that, if it wasnt for lennox we would not even know about a BVI case! that is a fact! . As for the prime minister consistency, he was under oath so he could do nothing but speak the truth. The truth did reveal many things we did not know, or he refuse to tell we the people that place him in office. What I do have to ask you Mr. Castro is what do you have to say about what Lennox reported. Stop dealing with the Lennox personality and deal with the reporting. Finally, the only reporter that was in the BVI was Lennox, so I ask you, How do you know the prime minister was consitent? Thats right, from Lennox, and as usual he calls it as he see its… drop all the fluff and deal with the issues.
Amen! this is very objective of you. People need to be more objective and stop the partisanship….that messing us up. You are also correct, if it was not lennox, we would never know what is happening to our country…castro does not see that, what a shame.
A liar can be consistent in his/her lies. Irrespective of this the question to be asked is why is the Leader of a self governing country involved in this scandal. Why is the office of the Prime minister handled with little or no respect. why wasn’t the Government information service there to cover and present the matter to the Dominican public if there is nothing to hide. We are being made fools off my this person whom we voted into office. that is the matter at hand not whether we are blue, red or green. Let us open our eyes.
I hope you open your damn eyes!