Thursday, August 5 – On August 4 the Governor, David Pearey, issued the following statement in relation to the above enquiry: “As made clear in recent media interviews the Report resulting from the above Commission of Enquiry was presented to the Governor on March 31, 2010 by the Commissioner, Sir Brian Alleyne. It has since been under careful examination in the Governor’s Office. I wish once again to express my thanks to the Commissioner and his team for their most thorough and valuable study and report.
Following our examination of the report, this together with Appendices 1 to 10 will be tabled in the House of Assembly at the next convenient sitting. As will be seen the Report makes extensive recommendations on ways of improving the legal and administrative framework designed to counter any future underpayment of tax. These recommendations have been given an initial airing in Cabinet and will be examined in more detail in the light of comments received from the specialist departments – the Attorney General, the Inland Revenue Department and the Land Registry.
At this stage it is not the intention to table in the House the final two Appendices, 11 and 12. These voluminous Appendices contain the full background and associated papers for the 24 transactions which the Commissioner and his staff, within the parameters defined in the enquiry’s terms of reference, studied in particular detail.
The Appendices are currently with the Attorney General to consider whether any further action might be appropriate to recover unpaid duty. To publish these Appendices at this time might risk giving the impression that some or all of these transactions involved wrongdoing and would be a breach of the confidential evidence taken during the enquiry, which was conducted in private. Consideration will however be given to providing further details of these transactions after the Attorney General has taken whatever action he deems appropriate.
ADVERTISEMENT
Property Sales
Cabinet has been informed of this approach and has also been provided with a copy of the report and the first ten Appendices.”
