CHARLESTOWN, Nevis – THE case of the cancelled cheques missing from the Treasury Department of the Nevis Island Administration (NIA) is one that warrants police intervention.
This was admitted by NIA Treasurer Colin Dore during the abbreviated second day of the Sharpe Commissioner of Inquiry yesterday (July 22) at the Nevis Cultural Centre in Charlestown.
Dore, one of two persons to testify, told the Commission that following the discovery earlier this year he wrote to Permanent Secretary of Finance Laurie Lawrence on May 6 and believed that the matter was then out of his hands.
Counsel to the Commission, Sir Richard Cheltenham pressed Dore on whether he told the Permanent Secretary that the matter should be pursued with the police, but the Treasurer reiterated that he believed the matter was now with his superior.
The missing cheques covered the period January 1, 1998 to March 31, 1999, and among them were two made out to Rosalind Nicholls. Rosalind Nicholls, along with Andrea Nicholls and Fitzroy Nicholls, were the sellers of the Marion Heights Mall which is the one of the transactions under the Commission’s microscope.
Cheque number 14011 for the sum of $453,752.24 was made payable to Rosalind Nicholls on December 1, 1998, and cheque number 14280 for the sum of $398,677.90 was made to the same person on December 9, 1998. No record is available on whose account the cheques were deposited.
Dore, who has been Treasurer since 1997, said his department had changed address some three times, one of them being from what he termed “the old treasurer building. Dore said the building was dilapidated and the day after the move it was fumigated. He told the Commission that he had responsibility for supervising the move but handed it over to the Ministry of Works. He admitted that he did not check the building before it was fumigated and later torn down.
Also testifying yesterday before the proceedings were halted, on account of an injunction filed by former Premier Vance Amory, was past Cabinet Secretary Oban Lawrence.
Lawrence said he had no record of any meetings by the Cabinet to discuss the Marion Heights Mall and he is in no position to explain the absence of records.
Rosalind Nichollas and Edric Stanley were scheduled to testify but did not appear.
