(Jamaica Gleaner) The People’s National Party (PNP) has released a statement saying it was the organisation which received US$1,000,000 from the alternative investment scheme Olint in the run up to the 2007 general election and not P.J. Patterson, a former party president and former Prime Minister of Jamaica.
According to the PNP, its investigation has established that US$1,000,000 was received in an account on its behalf and spent in the party’s election campaign. Olint and its founder David Smith have been accused of defrauding many Jamaicans in a Ponzi scheme.
PNP: No evidence we got Olint money
“Though the party has not yet received documentary evidence as to the source of this sum, our information is that it came from Olint,” party chairman Robert Pickersgill said in the statement.
Pickersgill also said the facts gleaned by the party’s investigators confirm the truth and accuracy of the statement previously released by Patterson that he did not get any money from Olint.
“This was an account of which the former Party President, PJ Patterson, had no knowledge or control,” Pickersgill said. “Our enquiries confirm that he neither obtained nor received this amount or any portion of it, in cash or kind. All the available evidence reveals that at no time was he told or made aware of the deposit or any disbursements made from it.”
PJ denies getting US$1m from OLINT
Pickersgill said in view of these findings, the PNP will be advising the authorities in the Turks & Caicos, so that the recipient of the funds is not wrongly identified.
The TCI had issued a confiscation order to recover the US$1 million from Patterson as well as several other people and organisations.
Meanwhile, the PNP says regarding the Confiscation Order’s reference to a gift of US$2,000,000 to the party, so far, its investigations have not identified any such amount, or any other amount as having been received on its behalf from Olint/David Smith.
Pickersgill says the PNP’s attorneys-at-law have written to the authorities in the Turks & Caicos to further request that they provide the Party with any relevant information that may assist in these investigations.
