Joel Julien

There is "sig­nif­i­cant doubt" about Pan Trin­ba­go's abil­i­ty to con­tin­ue as a "go­ing con­cern" in the light of a $34.5 mil­lion debt fac­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion, PKF Char­tered Ac­coun­tants and Busi­ness Ad­vi­sors has stat­ed in its lat­est in­de­pen­dent au­di­tors' re­port of the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Bry­on Ser­rette, who ear­li­er this week re­signed as the vice pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go, is now call­ing on the en­tire ex­ec­u­tive to step down with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.

Ser­rette is al­so call­ing for the launch of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Last Sat­ur­day PKF de­liv­ered its in­de­pen­dent au­di­tors' re­port of Pan Trin­ba­go.

"We draw at­ten­tion to Note 2 in the fi­nan­cial state­ments which dis­clos­es that the Or­gan­i­sa­tion has an Ac­cu­mu­lat­ed Deficit of $10,485,685 as at 30 June 2016 and its li­a­bil­i­ties ex­ceed its cur­rent as­sets and in­vest­ments by $14,954,960 as at the year end. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, In­ter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence and Panora­ma, a sub­sidiary of Pan Trin­ba­go, has out­stand­ing li­a­bil­i­ties to­talling $9,081,621 which the Or­gan­i­sa­tion may be li­able to pay in the near fu­ture," PKF stat­ed in the Em­pha­sis of Mat­ter sec­tion of the re­port.

"These con­di­tions in­di­cate the ex­is­tence of a ma­te­r­i­al un­cer­tain­ty that may cast sig­nif­i­cant doubt about the Or­gan­i­sa­tion's abil­i­ty to con­tin­ue as a go­ing con­cern. Our opin­ion was not qual­i­fied in re­spect of this mat­ter," PKF stat­ed.

PKF In­de­pen­dent au­di­tors' re­port came out at a time when the op­er­a­tions of Pan Trin­ba­go are be­ing ques­tioned.

Ser­rette re­signed from the Pan Trin­ba­go ex­ec­u­tive on Tues­day, hav­ing served in the po­si­tion since 2009.

"Re­cent­ly, I have had cause to do some in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to 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," Ser­rette stat­ed in his res­ig­na­tion let­ter.

Among those ques­tion­able trans­ac­tions Ser­rette raised was the is­sue of the al­leged pur­chase of two cars, a BMW X5 and an Au­di Q7, by Pan Trin­ba­go's pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az.

A re­lease from Pan Trin­ba­go de­scribed Ser­rette's claims as "er­ro­neous".

"It has been said in some quar­ters that Mr Ser­rette's am­bi­tion is to be Pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go. We have no quar­rel with this but we con­tin­ue to be a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic or­gan­i­sa­tion and we strive al­ways to do the best for our mem­ber­ship," Pan Trin­ba­go stat­ed.

Speak­ing to the Sun­day Guardian, Ser­rette said dur­ing a re­treat of Pan Trin­ba­go's cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive in June he at­tempt­ed to high­light ar­eas of con­cern that he felt need­ed to be ad­dressed.

"I just wish that the ex­ec­u­tive will re­sign, that a meet­ing will be called with the gen­er­al body and we try to deal with this as clean as pos­si­ble. At the end of the day the or­gan­i­sa­tion and pan will be the los­er, so it will be bet­ter that it is not long and pro­tract­ed," Ser­rette said.

"I don't know what is the bur­den of proof for fraud, I don't know what is the bur­den of proof for em­bez­zle­ment. I am in this for the steel band move­ment. I am re­tired and I want to give some of my life's ser­vice to im­prove the steel band move­ment. I did not come to take any­thing from it, I came to try to give and im­prove it and to make it a bet­ter place for those young peo­ple when I leave. There is a great po­ten­tial in steel­pan and we have to try and lift it up and I don't think that is what is hap­pen­ing now," he said.