ISA CYRIL, BOARD SECRETARY AND LEGAL COUNSEL TO ST.LUCIA'S CIP UNIT, RESIGNS HER POSITIONS

ISA CYRIL, who now serves as Lead Counsel for the country's beleaguered CIP Unit, and is also Secretary of its Board of Directors, resigned her position today, after both local and foreign media approached her for comment on recent events regarding the CIP vendor CARIBBEAN GALAXY REAL ESTATE LIMITED scandal. She sits on Board meetings together with McClaude Emmanuel and Christopher Paul. We applaud her action; it is expected that there will be other resignations in short order, as the CIP unit has stonewalled all requests made by the people for full disclosure in the Galaxy scandal.

The Board, led by Lorne Theophilus and McClaude Emmanuel, was responsible for approving the real estate contract with Caribbean Galaxy, while Deputy Prime Minister Hilaire signed the Infrastructure Fund contract. Galaxy collected over Two Billion Dollars (USD$2bn); None of the funds have been accounted for by the CIP program. Those fraudulent payments, which transited correspondent accounts in American banks, could be considered predicate acts for criminal money laundering charges in the U.S. Whether any of the American banks what accepted billions in what might ultimately be considered the Proceeds of Crime  remains an open question. 

We await further information on the expected resignation of a number of other Board members, whose contingent liability has become an issue, given the recent disclosures of information indicating possible Board misconduct.