Allegations of financial irregularities surface within Suddie Parlour Committee

Jul 12, 2018 News

The Suddie Parlour is now being closely monitored by the Region Two Administration after allegations of financial irregularities within the parlour committee surfaced yesterday.
Allegations of irregularities within the Committee were raised at the region’s statutory meeting yesterday, by Chairman of the health and sanitation Committee, Arnold Adams, and Regional Chairman Daveanand Ramdatt.
Adams was at the time delivering his health report, when numerous reports of misappropriation of funds surfaced.
In one of his reports, the committee purchased a generator transfer switch, which cost more than 50% the price of the actual generator.
In his report, he added, “A change over switch was recently purchased for more than $800,000.
The generator, on the other hand, is about $200,000 to $300,000. After inquiries, however, I find out a switch usually costs about $300,000.”
Adams also noted that though such a heavy sum of cash was allocated for the purchase of a transfer switch, the system still does not function efficiently whenever there’s a power outage.
He explained, “When there is blackout, the switch doesn’t work. Just recently with all the frequent blackouts, we had received a phone call from the parlour that the switch is not working at all.”
The Regional Chairman, who pointed out that the Committee’s expense is lagging closely behind its income, said that something isn’t adding up with the Committee’s spending. He added, “We are told that some projects were done and we don’t even know if these projects were done in line with the procurement process, by way of transparency to have tenders advertised to have the contractors do these projects.”
Ramdatt said that a meeting will soon be convened with the Committee that manages the parlour and based on information coming out of that meeting, a request for an independent investigation will be made.