Joel Julien

A po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion has be­gun in­to the hous­ing al­lowance paid to Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona.

How­ev­er, this is not yet a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams ex­plained yes­ter­day.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter is cur­rent­ly be­ing han­dled by the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau, Williams said.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion comes in re­sponse to four let­ters sent by at­tor­ney Justin Phelps on be­half of his client Rho­da Bharath to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice call­ing for the hous­ing al­lowance paid to Car­mona to be probed.

Bharath's call for the po­lice to in­ves­ti­gate the hous­ing al­lowance came as a re­sult of le­gal ad­vice she ob­tained from British Queen's Coun­sel Cathryn Mc­Ga­hey which stat­ed that a "prop­er and in­de­pen­dent" po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion must be con­duct­ed to "re­veal the true pic­ture" about the pay­ment.

On March 18, 2013, Car­mona as­sumed of­fice as this coun­try's pres­i­dent.

It was re­vealed that Car­mona re­ceived a tax-free hous­ing al­lowance of $28,000 a month from Ju­ly 2013 to May 2015 de­spite al­so be­ing pro­vid­ed with state ac­com­mo­da­tion at Flagstaff Hill. The month­ly al­lowance amount­ed to some $644,000.

As a re­sult of this, Mc­Ga­hey was asked to ad­vise Bharath on whether a re­quest to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to mis­con­duct in pub­lic of­fice on the part of the Pres­i­dent, his sec­re­tary Es­ther Daniel-Liv­er­pool, and Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) Stephanie Lewis was jus­ti­fied.

In her ad­vice, Mc­Ga­hey stat­ed that "the case is fine­ly bal­anced but I be­lieve that there are the mo­ment rea­son­able grounds to sus­pect that the of­fence of mis­con­duct in pub­lic of­fice has been com­mit­ted.

"It is pos­si­ble that fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions will re­veal cor­re­spon­dence to in­di­cate that those in­volved in seek­ing or pro­vid­ing the al­lowance did not tru­ly be­lieve the Pres­i­dent to be en­ti­tled to it, or were reck­less as to whether he was. Equal­ly, those in­ves­ti­ga­tions may show that every­one in­volved act­ed in good faith, whether or not the al­lowance was in fact payable on the true con­struc­tion of the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion Re­port. A prop­er and in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion should re­veal the true pic­ture," she stat­ed.

On Jan­u­ary 1, the Sun­day Guardian re­port­ed that the SRC dis­tanced it­self from Car­mona's hous­ing al­lowance.

Phelps sends 4 let­ters to CoP

Since Oc­to­ber 26, Phelps wrote the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice call­ing for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter.

Harold Philip was act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er at that time as Williams was on va­ca­tion.

Apart from the hous­ing al­lowance, Phelps al­so raised the is­sue of threats and ha­rass­ment to Bharath.

Phelps wrote the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice on three oc­ca­sions af­ter that.

The lat­est let­ter that Phelps sent was to Williams on No­vem­ber 28.

"I have not had any re­ply to any of my said let­ters, not even an ac­knowl­edge­ment. I am re­spect­ful­ly ask­ing for such ac­knowl­edge­ment and re­ply please, so that I may ad­vise my client ac­cord­ing­ly," Phelps wrote.

In re­sponse to that let­ter, a let­ter signed on be­half of Williams, dat­ed Jan­u­ary 3, stat­ed that the mat­ter was for­ward­ed to the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau.

"Your let­ter dat­ed No­vem­ber 28th, 2016 on the sub­ject is du­ly ac­knowl­edged," the let­ter stat­ed.

"Please be ad­vise that the re­port made by Ms Bharath was for­ward­ed to the of­fice of the Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau where it is be­ing dili­gent­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed by a team of of­fi­cers," it stat­ed.

"On com­ple­tion, you will be in­formed of the find­ings," the let­ter stat­ed.

Act­ing Snr Supt Yussef Alexan­der is cur­rent­ly the head of the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau.

No word from Pres­i­dent's House

The Sun­day Guardian called and sent text mes­sages to com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er at the Pres­i­dent's House Theron Boodan to get a com­ment on the sit­u­a­tion. Up to late yes­ter­day, no re­sponse was re­ceived.

NO CRIM­I­NAL IN­VES­TI­GA­TION HAS BEEN LAUNCHED–WILLIAMS

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Williams ex­plained that the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau has made a "pre­lim­i­nary as­sess­ment" of the mat­ter and has since writ­ten the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer.

"I have not yet seen any­thing re­lat­ed to the Justin Phelps sub­mis­sion on be­half of Rho­da Bharath. How­ev­er, I have been able to ver­i­fy that it was re­ceived at the of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er and the ad­min­is­tra­tive sergeant would have for­ward­ed it to the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau," Williams said.

"A crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion has not been launched in­to that mat­ter. How­ev­er, the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tion Bu­reau by mak­ing a pre­lim­i­nary as­sess­ment of what has been sent has writ­ten the Of­fice of the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer so that they can ver­i­fy some in­for­ma­tion from the CPO," he said.

"On the face of that mat­ter, hav­ing just spo­ken to the Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent An­ti-Cor­rup­tion Bu­reau, on the face of it a ques­tion of whether the CPO ex­er­cised au­thor­i­ty which is vest­ed in her or she went be­yond her au­thor­i­ty, and if she went be­yond her au­thor­i­ty it still is not a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion. It then be­comes a mat­ter for the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion be­cause it will in­volve is­sues around the dis­ci­pline of a pub­lic of­fi­cer, so that is for the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to con­sid­er," he said.

"The on­ly time that this be­comes rel­e­vant for the po­lice to con­sid­er is if it in­volves crim­i­nal­i­ty and on the face of it, at this point in time based on the ad­vice I have re­ceived from the Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau, is that noth­ing has been so ad­vanced of any crim­i­nal­i­ty," Williams said.