THE NOTEBOOK – Between You & Me Oct 10, 2009 – My Millions, Your Poverty

THE NOTEBOOK – Between You & Me Oct 10, 2009

“My Millions, Your Poverty… “

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This isle of beauty…. this isle of splendour is being systematically transformed into defense mechanism for corruption in government. The main beneficiary is Roosevelt Skerrit, who, as the head of government, is leveraging the notion that ‘everyone has a price’ to maximum personal advantage

In the process, the public service under the leadership of Felix Gregoire, an unrepentant Skerrit moose boy, is totally compromised… Skerrit uses money from the treasury to finance blatant partisan political activity… Millions are siphoned through village councils into private hands, millions more are passed to friends of the party for the untendered supply of goods and services with no competitive bidding… Constitutionally empowered watch dogs of the public interest – the President, the Attorney General, the Director of Audit, the Director of Public Prosecutions – are conveniently asleep but picking up their fat salaries nonetheless. And not a drum is heard…

Corruption in law enforcement and the administration of justice continues unchecked. Favored criminals – be they ministers of government, business leaders, lawyers, police officers, drug dealers – are routinely and dutifully protected. At the same time, honesty, integrity and open advocacy for the rule of law have become punishable offenses.

Are we fooling ourselves that the spate of unsolved murders in Dominica is the result of some bad luck from the sky? Selective justice is a hard fact of life in Dominica.

The Money Laundering Prevention Act of 2000 – yes we do have a money laundering prevention act – describes “money laundering” as:

1. Engaging in a transaction that involves property that is the proceeds of crime, knowing or believing the same to be the proceeds of crime; or
2. Receiving, possessing, managing, concealing, disguising, disposing of or bringing into Dominica any property that is the proceeds of crime, knowing or believing the same to be the proceeds of crime

In Part II, the act criminalizes money laundering and sets up penalties as follows:

3) A person who, after the commencement of this Act, engages in money laundering commits an offense

4) A person who aids, abets, counsels or procures the commission of, or attempts or conspires to commit the offence of money laundering commits an offence

5) A person who commits an offence under section 3 or 4 is liable, on conviction, to a fine not exceeding one million dollars, and to imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years

By law, we are supposed to have a Supervisory Authority for the prevention of Money Laundering operating with the support of a Financial Intelligence Unit… but you will not believe the amount of dirty money that is being laundered through Dominica.

The politicians peddle influence, the drug dealers buy expensive legal representation, the police botch up investigations, and evidence disappears or gets contaminated… the courts mark time in business as usual mode. And life goes on.

There are fines prescribed in law for drug offenses and theft… you would think that these fines (at the upper limits especially) would effectively discourage offenders from facing the court again on similar charges and deter would-be offenders from being brought before the court in the first place

But guess who is before the Judicial and Legal Services Commission in St Lucia for alleged misconduct? The only Magistrate in Dominica with the courage to impose fines and deal with crime in a way that clearly and consistently indicates it does not pay.

If you think something is wrong with this picture, remember you are in Dominica… the new 3^rd world playground of greed, selfishness any every man for himself in a political culture that shoots down decency, honesty and integrity

So isle of beauty… isle of splendour 2009… isle to all so sweet and fair with a price on their heads

The price of our poor huddled masses, yearning for opportunities to enjoy dignified living is a handout from the Red Clinic

Indeed, this Red Clinic has become the high water mark of institutionalized corruption in Dominica

It seems we never knew what poverty was and what it was to help poor people before the death of Pierre Charles in January 2004… Everything we know about poverty and helping poor people was invented by Roosevelt Skerrit… or so he would have us believe

Elsewhere in the civilized world, governments spend state resources on education, health and housing solutions designed to improve the socio-economic conditions of the less fortunate. To the extent of their sustainability, these state financed benefits have become entitlements

In our sister countries in the OECS for example, some governments operate state financed programmes for free text books, free school uniforms and free school meals… In Dominica under the UWP, there was a state financed programme for the delivery of free text books to children nationwide

The Labour Party abandoned the programme, claiming it was an expendable luxury in the days of IMF dictated austerity… today, with over 100 million dollars more coming into the tax purse per year than the UWP government had available to spend, the free text book programme has not being reinstated. Instead, parents who cannot afford, and some of those who can, are required to genuflect to Massa Skerrit in the Red Clinic for money to help send their children to school.

This deliberate entrenchment of the culture of mendicancy is driven by a sinister purpose.

Using the office of Prime Minister and the international goodwill available to the people of a developing country perceived to be a committed participant in global civilization, Roosevelt Skerrit has secured his own ATM capable of spitting out millions on the acquisition of personal assets as the need arises.

Hugo Chavez we are told, by former Tourism Minister Yvor Nassief, is very generous and gives Roosevelt Skerrit a lot of money… it is a disclosure made two years ago to justify Skerrit’s acquisition of land assets valued at over one million dollars on a legal income of $5,000 per month

Now what money does Chavez give generously to Skerrit? Is it Venezuela’s oil money? Is it some other kind of money? Is it the personal money of Chavez? And where would that personal money of Chavez come from? Is Skerrit fronting for Chavez? Is Chavez fronting for somebody else? Apart from Skerrit’s million dollar land assets and modest million dollar house, on what else is he spending all this money gifted to him personally by Chavez? And what is Chavez receiving, what has he received or what does he expect to receive in return?

Did Skerrit also personally benefit from the 2004 switch of diplomatic relations from Taiwan to mainland China? Is he a beneficiary of the millions looted from the Layou River economic citizenship programme by Grace Tung and David Hsiu who masterminded the switch from Taipei to Beijing? Is he a beneficiary of the millions swindled by David Hsiu’s Rich Victory from Felix Chen and the Sampo Corporation? Is he a beneficiary of the millions allegedly cashed in from the sale of diplomatic passports to all sorts of bounty hunters in the international community?

What are the sources of his enormous wealth accumulated over the past five years? It certainly did not come from his legal income as Prime Minister. So what other sources of legal income does he have that the Integrity Commission has apparently found favour with?

In his brazen abuse of public office for private gain since 2004, Skerrit stands supreme in the annals of Caribbean political history… and in here-in lies the twisted, unspoken rationale for the Red Clinic

In essence it is really about the use of poor vulnerable people to create a human shield around Skerrit that slavishly protects him from criticisms of corrupt behaviour with pious pleadings that he cares about poor people.

In truth and in fact, Skerrit cares about himself and uses poor people to prevent the rest of the world from knowing and understanding the extent to which he is involved in the unconscionable abuse of public office for his private gain.

We have come now a barrage of nonsensical question from supposedly intelligent people with university degrees suggesting that the only state financed solution for poverty and the symptoms of poverty is to have the prime minister corruptly dishing out the state’s money to questionable causes for his personal political gain

The master plan behind this propaganda war on the sensibilities of unsuspecting poor, vulnerable people is premised on the notion that as beneficiaries of Skerrit’s handouts, they will never have any reason to be concerned about:

His evasion of land transfer taxes

His violation of section 169 of the title by registration act

His million dollars assets that cannot be explained by his legal income

His lies about his real estate properties and business interests

His corruption of the public service

His key role in the garbage bin fraud

His key role in the fertilizer fraud

His key role in the diplomatic passport fraud

His key role in the continuation of the Layou River Economic citizenship fraud

His failure to answer questions about his interest in the high suspicious operations of Blaircourt Property Development Ltd

Based on the revelations of Skerrit’s friend Renneth Alexis, who rushed to the public with loan documentation to claim “all is mine” we are confronted with some mind boggling scenarios

A man, widely believed to be a front for Skerrit, walks into FCIB with 120K, his life insurance policy, title for land, makes a promise to assign all risk insurance on the buildings when completed, signs “unlimited personal guarantees” and walks out with 2.2 million dollars of the bank’s money.

Pretty amazing, when you consider the settled and generally accepted requirements of secure lending in the commercial banking sector

The other outrageous thing about these real estate developments is the significant amount of cash (from a company with no known revenue stream, no share allocation on record, no evidence of equity funding and no evidence of any bank financing either) that has been washed through the system in broad day light (with red flags popping up again and again) and not a drum is heard from FIU, FSU, the Police, the Bank, the Registrar, the AG, the DPP, Invest Dominica

Consider carefully these Blaircourt cash outlays:

• 239K cash to pay Cecil Lockhart
• 250K cash to pay Rufus Savarin
• 50K in land transfer taxes and legal fees
• the 120K cash deposit to FCIB
• the 200K repayment to McKenzie Mitchell
• the approx 4.1 million over the bank financing to complete construction of the Picard apartments
• the approx 4.2 million over the bank financing to complete construction of the Savanne Paille villas

We are talking  9 million dollars yes EC$ 9,000,000.00 in magical manifestations whenever Blaircourt Property Development was in need. Whose cash is this?

Is anyone in Dominica interested in the source of these funds at this giddying time of concerted global action against drug trafficking, money laundering and the financing of terrorism?

We remind you that the purpose of our on-going investigation into Blaircourt Property Development Ltd is to uncover this authoritative and important, unseen influence that is seemingly directing, incorporators, sole directors, lawyers, banks, land vendors, the registry, Invest Dominica, the Cabinet and others to do exactly what is necessary for this miracle company to get whatever its owners so desire.

We are inching closer… within the next 8 days, our Blue Ribbon team of forensic investigators will report on what we hope will be the definitive international dimension to this local concoction of irregularities that have confounded us all.