A bombshell on missing oil and gas files

NNP used to hide top secret state documents away from public officers in a bank vault and not in the government ministry

A former high-ranking member of the Public Service believes that Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell should launch a criminal investigation into the missing oil and gas files.

The ex-government employee called THE NEW TODAY on Monday to disclose that the New National Party (NNP) of Dr. Keith Mitchell is known to have placed a number of top secret government documents away from the piercing eyes of public officers and for safe-keeping at a vault belonging to a local commercial bank.

He said this was the case with the “controversial and illegal” US$100 million promissory notes that were negotiated back in 1998 without any approval from Parliament from a group of questionable investors from Europe.

He spoke of having knowledge of the documents for the funds being hidden away at the Vault of the then state-owned Grenada Bank of Commerce (GBC) and the key was held by a Minister of State in the 1999-2003 government.

Former High Commissioner to London Marcelle Gairy had furnished the secret US$100 million Promissory Notes to then Foreign Minister Dr. Raphael Fletcher whose resignation brought down the Keith Mitchell regime in 1998.

Copies of the Promissory Notes showed that it was signed by Dr. Mitchell as Prime Minister and Dr. Linus Spencer-Thomas who held the post of Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance.

THE NEW TODAY understands that Dr. Thomas was the one who travelled to England to meet with the questionable investors and High Commissioner Gairy was tipped off about the mission by a male employee at the office in London.

When Dr. Thomas no longer held the post of PS Finance, the new office holder Dr. Brian Francis refused to give approval to the effort to borrow the money since it had not received an approval from Parliament and had no cover by way of a Cabinet Conclusion.

According to the ex-government employee, the decision taken by the NNP regime of Dr. Mitchell to place the secret Promissory Notes in a Bank Vault was very unusual and suspicious as government documents are normally placed in the Registry in the respective line ministry.

“I won’t be surprised if a lot of these files (Gas and Oil) are hidden away. Clearly, if the documents are in the ministry then you can’t tell me that they are in the ministry and you can’t find them. If they are not in the ministry then where are they – because we know they exist,” he said.

The retired public officer recalled that all the documents relating to the Promissory Notes that were signed for by Dr. Mitchell and then Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance Dr. Linus Spencer Thomas “were not in the Ministry of Finance.”

“They had it in some secret vault there (GBC),” he said.

Asked if this was legal and correct, he said: “Of course not. These are public documents so these documents are supposed to be held in the ministry -that is where they’re supposed to be in the ministry. That is why you have filing Cabinets and stuff like that.”

“They are correctly supposed to be in the ministry. That is where they are supposed to be – in the ministry. If everything is above board why would you have documents in Grenada Bank of Commerce if this whole thing is above board? Why? A simple question – why?

“Is it supposed to be a secret? How public borrowing could be a secret when it is supposed to be debated in Parliament? How it could be a secret? Once that is happening then you know that there is something (suspicious) going on.”

THE NEW TODAY understands that a high profile Permanent Secretary visited the then Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance to ask for the Promissory Notes documents as the investors had returned to the island to try and seal the deal with the NNP regime.

According to the ex-government official, the PS approached his counterpart in the Ministry of Finance asking for the key to get into the Bank vault to retrieve the documents and was told that he never had it in his possession.

It was then that the PS Finance turned to the Minister of State who acknowledged that he had the key to the vault in the bank.

A well-placed source familiar with the issue said that the Minister prepared a letter in which he indicated that he was handing over the key to the vault to the PS Finance in the presence of the other Permanent Secretary but he refused to go along.

He said that the PS informed the Minister that it was the other PS who came looking for the key to get into the bank vault and that he was the right person to do the handing over to and not him.

He spoke of going through all the documents in the Ministry of Finance and never saw anything like Promissory Notes being held there.

The ex-public officer also raised the issue of the whereabouts of those oil and gas documents from the engagement that took place in the 2008-13 period of Congress in government between the then Minister of Finance Nazim Burke and officials of GPG on the subject of oil & Gas.

He recalled that Burke was not only the Minister of Finance but also held the portfolio of Energy which empowered him to deal directly with the Russians.

“So where are those documents?” he quipped.

According to the ex-government high-ranking officer, it is not inconceivable that something similar could have been done with the Oil & Gas files in the deal struck by NNP and the GPG Group.

This, he said, is how the NNP regime of Dr. Mitchell “used to operate” in matters of secretive documents belonging to the state not putting them into the hands of Public Officers but keeping it away from them in a bank vault.

“This Promissory Note thing was never discussed at Cabinet or Parliament. As far as I know all borrowings have to be approved by Parliament,” he added.

The ex-government employee called for current Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell to invite the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) or the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF) to look for the so-called missing files.

The probe, he said, should also include if necessary a search at the homes of those ex-NNP government ministers who had dealings with the Russians although he suspected that by now “they might be wise enough not to hide them at their homes – but who knows?

He called for the investigators to first contact the PS at the time in the Ministry of Energy on the whereabouts of the missing files.

“Let the PS tell you well, I have never seen these documents – let him tell you or that I have seen these documents – they used to be here but I don’t know what happened – let him account, somebody has to know something.”