The Executive Director of the Social Investment Fund resigned and four employees were fired after allegations of wrongdoing. However a number of questions still remain. Love News spoke with Prime Minister Dean Barrow who described the incident as most unfortunate. He said it is simply a case of unwelcomed corruption on the part of the employees. The Prime Minister bristled at the view that the revelations might suggest corruption within the system allowing known UDP operatives to benefit.
RT. HON. DEAN BARROW
“Mr. Smart was the contractor; he is not a UDP operative; he is a contractor who got contracts and who has complained now that people have extorted him. His complaints have been investigated, the Contractor General has found those complaints made out and the people have been dealt with, they have been fired. Please don’t try to make this into more than it is; what it is, is bad enough; don’t try to finger the government or the United Democratic Party; that is absolutely unacceptable.”
AVA DIAZ SOSA
“Where do you go from here? SIF has always maintained a stellar reputation and this is a shock to many people; how do you try and build back that trust in this organization?”
RT. HON. DEAN BARROW
“By getting new people; by getting a set of personnel that hopefully will be subjected to very serious litmus test with respect to their integrity but of course, in the end, every system is only as good as the people that operate it. There appears to be a larger societal problem when professional people, who on the face of it have excellent qualifications, would engage in this sort of corruption. There is no way you can deal with that aspect of human nature; as I said, the Board of Directors would have to try to ensure that the weeding out process, as they recruit new personnel, is as effective as possible and thereafter the organization would have to be very much on its guard to try to sniff out any instances of corruption that might occur in the future; that is all we can do in terms of any human endeavor.”
We asked Barrow if given some of the revelations if there would be a need to review some of the previous contracts awarded.
RT. HON. DEAN BARROW
“I don’t see that that arises at all; it is my understanding that what Smart alleged was not that he had to pay to get contracts but that he had to pay to get payments under the contracts. This is a huge scandal; it doesn’t sound good to try to make it even bigger than it realistically is. It is bad enough as things stand; it has been dealt with and hopefully as we move on there will be no repetition, there will nor reoccurrence of this kind of thing at SIF. There is the board and whoever will become the new Executive Director and the members of staff will have a special responsibility now to try to do everything to guard against any repetition but ultimately, you’re dealing with human beings and if they are determined to be corrupt, that’s the way life is; we would simply have to be on our p’s and q’s so that we might be able to root out that corruption, sniff it out if it’s occurring and deal with it; we can’t take it beyond that.”
Investors, Emy Gilharry Ramirez and Lyndon Bailey are trying to recover monies they have put into the program. The Prime Minister insists that whatever arrangements were made was done with the contractor and not the Social Investment Fund.
RT. HON. DEAN BARROW
“They have been wronged by Smart; they made internal or private arrangements with Smart to come in and to help to bail him out. Obviously, Smart was not performing under the contract and apart from what was happening in terms of his payment and payments under the table to SIF professionals, he was not performing and he had cash flow problems. He got these people involved with him and I sympathize with these people and I am sorry for them but does that have to do with SIF?”
AVA DIAZ SOSA
“Even though they have documents proving that they have been in constant contact with SIF and in one case, a letter signed by …….”
RT. HON. DEAN BARROW
“They got with SIF as now part of Mr. Smart’s operations. There is nothing that they can show that would suggest that SIF said, ‘oh you’re joining up with Mr. Smart; well, listen we are guaranteeing you that this contract will be finished and we will be paying you’. No, that was a matter for them to oversee, for them to have ensured from the time they got involved with Smart and became part of their organization. If the organization fell down because Smart did not do the work and the contract had to be terminated; they are out of pocket since they helped to fund Smart but that is a matter between them and Smart; I sympathize but there is nothing Government or SIF can do about that.”
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