For­mer Trea­sur­er of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board (TTCB), Kiswah Chaitoo, lost his ap­peal against the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB). The Supreme Ap­pel­late Com­mit­tee (SAC), led by Chair­man Jus­tice Prakash Moo­sai, an­nounced its de­ci­sion on Mon­day.

Chaitoo, who was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Din­ish Ram­bal­ly and Ste­fan Ramkissoon, chal­lenged the no-con­fi­dence mo­tion brought against him by the TTCB this year af­ter he re­port­ed al­leged fraud­u­lent ac­tiv­i­ty to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

Back in No­vem­ber 2023, Chaitoo, af­ter dis­cov­er­ing dis­crep­an­cies in the ac­counts of the TTCB, made a re­port to the Fraud Squad of lar­ce­ny by an em­ploy­ee. Nei­ther the TTCB nor its ex­ec­u­tive had pri­or knowl­edge of the re­port. The TTCB stat­ed that Chaitoo did not ini­tial­ly re­port to the TTCB Ex­ec­u­tive be­fore go­ing to the Fraud Squad. This was in con­trast to the TTCB statutes that led to the Board tak­ing is­sues with Chaitoo’s ac­tions.

The TTCB called a vote of no con­fi­dence in Chaitoo dur­ing a spe­cial gen­er­al meet­ing on Feb­ru­ary 28, 2024, and the mo­tion was car­ried 35-12 af­ter the trea­sur­er re­vealed in De­cem­ber 2023 that ap­prox­i­mate­ly $500,000 was al­leged­ly mis­used over five years.

The mo­tion signed and put for­ward by sev­er­al mem­bers of the TTCB ac­cused Chaitoo of hav­ing com­mit­ted four breach­es ac­cord­ing to ar­ti­cles 25 and 27 of the TTCB con­sti­tu­tion:

1. Procur­ing doc­u­ments of the TTCB and keep­ing the doc­u­ments in his pos­ses­sion with­out the au­tho­ri­sa­tion of the Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive.

2. Mak­ing a re­port to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice with­out the knowl­edge/ap­proval of the Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive while an in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion was be­ing con­duct­ed by the TTCB in­to said al­le­ga­tions.

3. In­ten­tion­al­ly mak­ing state­ments to the me­dia and at an An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing that are known to be un­true.

4. Re­fus­ing to at­tend a meet­ing of the Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive called to en­quire in­to mat­ters of con­cern to the Board that arose from the con­duct of Mr Kiswah Chaitoo.

Through his at­tor­neys, Chaitoo ar­gued he was “at­tempt­ing to treat with is­sues re­lat­ing to fi­nan­cial mis­man­age­ment and fraud. There was a fail­ure to treat with him (by the TTCB) with the prin­ci­ples of nat­ur­al jus­tice.”

It added that the “dis­clo­sure to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and the me­dia was not a breach of con­fi­den­tial­i­ty with what could be tan­ta­mount to se­ri­ous mis­con­duct,” and the No Mo­tion of Con­fi­dence was passed on the ba­sis of ul­te­ri­or mo­tives. Chaitoo as­sert­ed he is a char­tered ac­coun­tant and is bound by the code of ethics.

The TTCB, in its sub­mis­sion, con­tend­ed there were “no pro­ce­dur­al ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties or vi­o­la­tions dur­ing the meet­ing the No Con­fi­dence Mo­tion was passed.” It fur­ther stat­ed Mr Chaitoo “was prop­er­ly no­ti­fied of the meet­ing and was giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to present his de­fence and re­spond to the al­le­ga­tions be­fore the vote was made.”.

The TTCB al­so ar­gued that Chaitoo had “am­ple op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­plain his con­duct with re­spect to the al­leged breach of con­fi­den­tial­i­ty and the pro­cure­ment of the re­spon­dent’s doc­u­ments, keep­ing (the doc­u­ments) in his pos­ses­sion with­out the au­tho­ri­sa­tion of the Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive.”.

The SAC, which al­so com­pris­es Samuel Saun­ders, Ren­nie Go­sine, Kent Ghi­sawan, Nor­ris Fer­gu­son, Pat­sy Joseph, and Am­mar Sama­roo, found that “There was no chal­lenge to the va­lid­i­ty of any of the ar­ti­cles them­selves. What the ap­pel­lant (Mr Chaitoo) con­tends is that there should first be a find­ing of se­ri­ous mis­con­duct be­fore a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence can be pur­sued.

The SAC con­tin­ued: “As a mat­ter of ju­ris­dic­tion, it was open for the (TTCB) to elect to pur­sue a Mo­tion of No Con­fi­dence, there be­ing no re­quire­ment im­posed up­on it to first­ly re­fer the mat­ter to the (Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tee).”

The SAC con­sid­ered the TTCB’s sub­mis­sion that the crick­et body es­ti­mat­ed a loss of spon­sor­ship for the 2024 sea­son in the re­gion of ap­prox­i­mate­ly TT$1.07 mil­lion dol­lars, sub­stan­tial­ly for its youth de­vel­op­ment pro­grams.

“The pub­lic was al­ready made aware of the al­le­ga­tions of fraud with­in the TTCB. Chaitoo, by giv­ing an in­ter­view (to a me­dia house), in­vei­gled the pub­lic to take a dim­mer view of the TTCB by invit­ing the in­sin­u­a­tion that Chaitoo was be­ing scape­goat­ed be­cause he took a par­tic­u­lar stance on this fraud. The very ti­tle, ‘I Tried To Do The Right Thing…,’ sug­gest­ed that Chaitoo was to po­ten­tial­ly be oust­ed from his post be­cause he re­fused to ad­here to the wish­es of the ex­ec­u­tive, which sought to con­ceal the wrong­do­ing that he had dis­cov­ered. State oth­er­wise, he was be­ing vic­timised for choos­ing ‘right.’”.

The SAC con­clud­ed the TTCB, which was en­ti­tled to han­dle its own dis­ci­pli­nary regime, “act­ed fair­ly in all the cir­cum­stances in for­mu­lat­ing and pass­ing the Mo­tion of No Con­fi­dence in Chaitoo.”