BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – THE Frigate Bay Development Corporation is in “dire financial straits” according to Tourism Minister the Hon. Lindsay Grant and investigations are being made into its financial operations over the past years, for the last nine of which, there are no audited accounts.
Minister Grant provided this information earlier today (Sept. 15) while making a presentation during Parliament.
He said while investigations are being made, he has received a preliminary report from which he read about the Frigate Bay Development Corporation’s woes.
“I should inform this Honourable House that we have begun investigations into the operation of the Frigate Bay Development Corporation over the last several years. I must say that I have been given a preliminary report on the very undertakings of that institution and it is worthy to note that just at a glance, looking at the preliminary report that I have been given, indicates that that very corporation has not had the benefit of audited accounts since 2006.”
Minister Grant explained that also according to the preliminary report, a committee had been tasked with dealing with or looking into the accounts for the Corporation however, no audited accounts for the past nine years have been produced.
“So here we have …what I would term, a multi-million dollar corporation existing for the last nine years without any audited accounts. And more specifically in that preliminary report, it shows that the said corporation had set up a committee to look into the accounts, a paid committee for the last nine years, which ended up not giving any audited accounts whatsoever for the last nine years.”
Because of the gravity of the Corporation’s fiscal difficulty, the Government might be called upon for support Grant informed.
“And I believe that in and of itself is a serious failure on the part of the statutory corporation, which is invested as a trustee of the people’s assets, not to place before the people any audited accounts. And so…we are in the process of ensuring that that is done.
“I must say however, that the corporation finds itself in, what I would term, dire financial straits and so may very well need the intervention of the government at some point in the future. And certainly the report will be brought before the Cabinet for the Cabinet to make whatever decisions that ought to be made on that report.”
The Frigate Bay Development Corporation was run by Rudolph Morton as Managing Director from 1998 up until a couple of months ago.
SKNVibes understands that Wilmoth Roberts is currently the Acting Managing Director.
