Rhon­dor Dowlat

Pan Trin­ba­go vice-pres­i­dent By­ron Ser­rette yes­ter­day re­signed af­ter he al­leged­ly dis­cov­ered a trail of ques­tion­able fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tions and a large and grow­ing debt with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Among the is­sues which caused Ser­rette's un­ex­pect­ed de­par­ture was the al­leged pur­chase and in­tend­ed use of two lux­u­ry ve­hi­cles–a BMW X5 and an Au­di Q7–di­rect­ly from Lon­don with PanTrin­ba­go fund­ing to the tune of al­most $94,086 up to the point it was dis­cov­ered.

Ser­rette, who ap­peared on CNC3's Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, said over the past two years and in the last six months in par­tic­u­lar, he had seen cer­tain things go­ing on and had been ask­ing ques­tions with no an­swers.

"Things are com­ing to the ex­ec­u­tive, de­ci­sions are be­ing tak­en by some kind of ca­bal," Ser­rette claimed.

He said in June he sub­mit­ted a 15-page mem­o­ran­dum to Pan Trin­ba­go's pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az while on a re­treat. The memo, he said, con­tained a se­ries of con­cerns and ques­tions sur­round­ing the op­er­a­tions of the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

"It dealt with fi­nance and gov­er­nance and point­ed out weak­ness­es that need­ed to be strength­ened but my memo was dis­card­ed and I be­gan to come un­der more pres­sure than be­fore.

"I was os­tracised and that's when I start­ed to do my own in­ves­ti­ga­tions and be­came very much ap­palled to some of the find­ings," Ser­rette said.

"I can­not be a part of this be­cause I main­tain in­tegri­ty. Hav­ing worked at Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion for 35 years, I still con­sid­er my­self a law en­force­ment of­fi­cer and I still main­tain my in­tegri­ty."

In his res­ig­na­tion let­ter ad­dressed to Pan Trin­ba­go sec­re­tary Richard Forteau, dat­ed Oc­to­ber 28, Ser­rette ex­plained:

"I have had cause to do some in­ves­ti­ga­tion in as­pects of our op­er­a­tions. This be­came nec­es­sary be­cause of a patent lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and in­for­ma­tion at the cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive. What I have un­earthed is a trail of ques­tion­able fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tions and a large and grow­ing debt.

"These find­ings, to­geth­er with the in­ten­tion­al dis­re­gard that was shown to my ef­forts at ad­dress­ing and cor­rect­ing our dys­func­tion, as sub­mit­ted in my pre­sen­ta­tion at the Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive Re­treat on June 19, 2016, leave me with no oth­er op­tion but to re­move my­self from this ad­min­is­tra­tion of Pan Trin­ba­go."

Ser­rette dis­closed the re­sults of an au­dit he re­ceived at the or­gan­i­sa­tion's An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing (AGM) on Sun­day, which stat­ed Pan Trin­ba­go was very close to in­sol­ven­cy.

"It's in the red, in tune to mil­lions of dol­lars and I will not be part of the ex­ec­u­tive if the or­gan­i­sa­tion is go­ing in that di­rec­tion. It seems as they don't un­der­stand what in­sol­ven­cy means," he said.

Asked if oth­er ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers agreed or dis­agreed with the al­le­ga­tions, Ser­rette replied: "There are a few who do but then there are the few, the core, who are in blind sup­port. I told them to come down on the side of what is right."

Ser­rette blamed Di­az for what was hap­pen­ing in the or­gan­i­sa­tion and be­lieves that in or­der for it to move for­ward and for pan's ad­vance­ment, Di­az must go.

"I blame every­thing square­ly on him (Di­az). There were some weak­ness­es on ac­coun­tan­cy of­fi­cers and col­lu­sion by oth­er mem­bers of the ex­ec­u­tive and I want Kei­th Di­az re­moved as pres­i­dent," Ser­rette said.

Doc­u­ment trail

Doc­u­ments ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed's CNC3 and T&T Guardian, in­clud­ing copies of emails and mon­ey wire trans­fer doc­u­ments, showed the al­leged ques­tion­able pur­chas­es of the BMW X5 and an Au­di Q7.

In an email, dat­ed De­cem­ber 31, 2015, a re­quest was made of a se­nior PanTrin­ba­go of­fi­cial to trans­fer, via West­ern Union, a �5,000 de­posit "as soon as pos­si­ble in or­der for us to be able to pur­chase the rims and tyres in time and to be able to ship the car on Jan­u­ary 8, 2016. The re­main­ing bal­ance will be �11,000 GBP."

In one of the im­por­ta­tion doc­u­ments seen by the T&T Guardian, there was a home ad­dress of a PanTrin­ba­go of­fi­cial.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day for com­ment about the al­le­ga­tions made by Ser­rette, PanTrin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az said he had no com­ment to give to the me­dia.