Trafigura funding plan retraced
Published:Thursday | March 10, 2022 | 12:10 AMLivern Barrett/Senior Staff Reporter
The People’s National Party (PNP) bank account into which the bulk of a controversial $31-million payment from the Dutch firm Trafigura Beheer was lodged in 2006 was opened a day after the first tranche of the funds was wired to another Jamaican entity, the party’s former general secretary has disclosed.
The account, according to Campbell, was operated under the name SW Services/Team Jamaica and was opened on September 7, 2006, by businessman Prakash Vaswani, then chairman of the PNP’s campaign finance committee.
“This was done because we were instructed by the leader of the People’s National Party, who was also the prime minister, to prepare the party for early general elections,” he said, referring to the PNP campaign team.
Campbell was responding to questions crafted by investigators from the Netherlands and posed by Jamaican prosecutors in the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
Dutch authorities, who are investigating whether the $31-million payment broke any laws there, want Campbell, former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, Kingston East and Port Royal Member of Parliament Phillip Paulwell, former PNP Chairman Robert Pickersgill, and businessman Norton Hinds to answer questions about the payment under oath.
Simpson Miller is expected to be excused from giving evidence because of a medical condition, it has been revealed. Hinds and Paulwell have already given evidence.
On September 6 and 12, 2006, Trafigura electronically transferred three payments, each for just over $10 million, to CCOC Association, prosecutors disclosed.
CCOC Association – acronym for Colin Campbell Our Candidate – was created in 1993 to raise funds for Campbell’s election campaign that year, the former PNP general secretary acknowledged.
CCOC A ‘BEARER’ ACCOUNT
Just over $30 million was transferred by CCOC Association to the account operated by SW Services/Team Jamaica on September 14, 2006, seven days after it was opened.
Campbell said CCOC Association has never had any relationship with Trafigura and that its account was only used as a “bearer” to transfer the “donation” from the Dutch firm to the then governing PNP.
CCOC Association, he said, was not registered with the Companies Office of Jamaica and “has no records outside of a cheque book”.
Pulling back the curtains on Jamaica’s political campaign financing landscape, the former PNP general secretary said SW Services/Team Jamaica was created to facilitate donors who do not want their names affiliated with the party.
“In Jamaican politics, you cannot have all your accounts called PNP this or JLP that ... . You have to have names that are neutral,” he asserted.
“Jamaican corporations, Jamaican business entities, and, indeed, most ordinary Jamaicans do not draw cheques to political parties. As a result, we have to have an account to which people feel comfortable to give.”
Campbell admitted that he was the person who gave CCOC Association’s banking information to former Trafigura boss Claude Daphin during a “one-on-one” meeting that could have been on August 23, 2006.
ONE-DAY VISIT
He said he offered to give Daphin details of the official PNP account but said the Trafigura boss, who died six years ago, requested an account that would not link his firm with the Jamaican political organisation.
Records from the Passport, Immigration and Citizenship Agency show that Daphin arrived in Jamaica on August 23, 2006, and left the following day, prosecutors revealed.
Daphin’s “preoccupation” with coming to Jamaica was for a “six- to seven-minute” courtesy call on the country’s first female prime minister and to get a personal photograph with Simpson Miller as well as an autograph to take back to his daughter, Paulwell said in his evidence on Tuesday.
But Campbell acknowledged that Daphin was referred to him in his capacity as PNP general secretary and that’s when the “donation” was offered.
“There was nobody else in the meeting. It was a one-and-one conversation which lasted no more than five minutes,” he said.
“What day did this meeting take place?” Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Andrea Martin Swaby questioned.
“I really can’t recall the exact date. The reference to between the 23rd and 24th of August 2006 sounds about right,” he said, insisting that he did not give the Trafigura boss any invoice during their talks.
Campbell denied meeting with Daphin or any other Trafigura executives in New York, in the United States, in August 2006, charging that this was among several lies “manufactured and distributed” by the then Opposition Jamaica Labour Party.
He acknowledged, however, that he, Simpson Miller, and Paulwell were in New York, in the United States, in early August 2006 for the Jamaican Independence celebrations.
Campbell completed his evidence on Wednesday, paving the way for Pickersgill to answer questions today via video link.