Twenty-three cheques were yesterday tendered as exhibits in the trial of former PPP/C public service minister Dr Jennifer Westford and her former aide Margaret Cummings, who are charged with the alleged theft of over $600 million from the government.
The cheques were tendered when Jennifer Chapman, the Deputy Accountant General at the Ministry of Finance, resumed her testimony before city magistrate Judy Latchman.
Chapman told the court that the 23 cheques that were handed over to the police were later returned to the Account General’s Department. Chapman is presently the acting Accountant General. She said the cheques were kept in a safe that was locked away in a vault. She added that the vault could be opened with a combination number by the Account General, while noting that there is an inner door which leads to the vault and the key for the door is kept by the Chief Accountant in the Receipts and Payment section.
When asked, Chapman told state prosecutor Natasha Backer that if she was shown the cheques, she could identify them by pink digitised signatures of J Persaud and JA Dinally on six of the cheques and by her signature and the signature of J Persaud on the remainder.
Chapman also told the court that at the back of the cheques were stamps of the Permanent Secretary of the Office of the President. The witness reaffirmed to the court that the cheques were the ones that were handed over to the police during the investigation.
Chapman had previously testified that the police had requested the 23 cheques, dating from 2011 to 2014. She had said that the cheques reflected transactions from the Inter-Departmental Warrants issued by Public Service Ministry. Chapman said the warrants were issued by the ministry to the former Office of the President. She said the funds would then be released by the Ministry of Finance, but before that a statement had to be prepared to define the purpose of the warrant.
Backer, after allowing Chapman to identify the 23 cheques in court yesterday, made an application to magistrate Latchman for the cheques to be tendered and marked as exhibits. Latchman, after receiving no objections from the defence, granted the prosecutor’s application.
Defence attorney Dexter Todd later told the court that the defence would defer cross-examining Chapman until the next hearing, which the magistrate scheduled for March 29th.
