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A statement given to the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency, MOCA, has formally accused the People’s National Party, PNP-controlled Kingston and St. Andrew Municipal Corporation, KSAMC, of operating a scheme where public funds are used to finance the campaign activities of PNP caretakers and candidates.
The six page statement also accuses the KSAMC of issuing some of its budgetary allocations to PNP representatives for their personal use.
The statement was given by former PNP caretaker for Central Kingston, Lawrence Rowe.
Law enforcement sources say the development comes as the corruption scandal which hit the KSAMC and the opposition PNP earlier this year has taken a major turn.
George Davis has this Nationwide News exclusive.
The statement given by Lawrence Rowe to MOCA makes for stunning reading.
It name drops at least seven PNP officials and representatives and with extensive detail, accusing them of being involved in a ruse to defraud the KSAMC.
Rowe told MOCA that monies have been issued by the KSAMC to several candidates, including in one key marginal seat in the Corporate Area.
He detailed instances of being contacted by an official from the KSAMC and offered money from the corporation to fund political work.
Rowe told MOCA that the PNP member and staffer at the KSAMC who issued the money to PNP political representatives overtly made a request for the transaction to be kept a secret.
The former PNP candidate told police investigators – “I believe that the monies were from the KSAMC and it was to be a secret”.
He says the instruction from the PNP member who works at the KSAMC was that the funds should be used for political activity or anything the PNP caretakers so desire.
Rowe also accused a PNP member and official at the KSAMC of funding the activities of at least four dons in the Corporate Area.
However, he told MOCA that while the monies to fund some PNP caretakers came from the KSAMC, he is unsure about the source of the money given to the area leaders by the PNP official.
In another eyebrow raising development, Rowe name dropped a PNP caretaker in a key battleground constituency who he says has been receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from the KSAMC on a monthly basis.
He says the funds were transferred to a PNP divisional chair in the battleground seat who would then encash it and hand it over to the PNP caretaker.
Rowe suggested to MOCA in detail that at least one senior official in the PNP knew about the corruption scheme.
Nationwide News understands that as part of the MOCA probe the anti-corruption agency seized Rowe’s Samsung A53 phone and extracted evidence.
A host of damning text messages, voice recordings and images relating to the KSAMC and the PNP form part of the MOCA high profile investigation.
Earlier this year, Kingston’s mayor Andrew Swaby strongly denied any wrongdoing by the KSAMC under his watch.
The denial came after a conversation leaked of Lawrence Rowe asking PNP general secretary Dr. Dayton Campbell why some PNP representatives received more resources from the KSAMC compared to others.
Dr. Campbell said this was being done for strategic purposes ahead of the then anticipated calling of two divisional by-elections.
The PNP general secretary has since publicly strongly denied any involvement in or knowledge of wrongdoing at the KSAMC.
English (US) ·