Officials refute existence of Syed’s card policy

(CNS): The chief officer in the education ministry at the time Hassan Syed was president of the UCCI, Angela Martins, and college board member, Deborah Drummond, the deputy financial secretary at the time, as well as the college dean at the time, Dr Brian Chappell, gave evidence Tuesday that there was no policy dealing with the use of the university’s credit cards. The crown claim that Syed, who is charged with stealing around CI$550,000 from the UCCI, had created a false policy document once the auditor general’s office began raising concerns about the college financials to hide his own dishonesty.

Giving evidence at Syed’s trial, Martins and Drummond made it clear that neither the ministry nor the board were watching expenditure at the college, but they both said they were unaware of any written policy regarding credit cards at the college or that ten cards had been handed out to college management. They both said nothing about that was ever brought to the board, as it should have been.

Martins also told the court that when she had raised the issue of the lack of financial reporting to the board by the college, Syed had complained to the education minister about her attitude because, she said, it had not “gone down well”. She told the court that after that, Alden McLaughlin, who was the education minister at the time, had told her that she should be more supportive towards Syed, but she denied distrusting or disliking Syed.

Asked about the credit cards, Drummond said that she was unaware of who had them, who authorized them or why, and confirmed she had never seen a written policy. However, she said she believed it was “self-evident” that a government credit card shouldn’t be used for personal spending. She suggested it was a matter of “ethical regression” that senior staff would have to see that in writing to stop them from using it for their own benefit.

Dr Chappell, who was a chair of the maths and science departments and then dean during Syed’s tenure, was one of the ten credit card holders. He told the court, as he gave evidence via video link, that he had signed a document when he got his card to say he was responsible for the expenditure, for supplying the relevant receipts, that it was meant to be for authorized college business use only and any unauthorized spending had to be paid back immediately or it would be deducted from the holder’s salary.

But Chappell denied ever seeing the policy that prosecutors say Syed created to cover his back. He said he had never seen the document and was never told that he could use the credit card for lavish entertaining and gifts. He said any souvenirs or gifts given to college visitors would be UCCI branded items, such as pens, mugs, note books or t-shirts, not luxury jewellery.

Chappell said that he rarely used the card and when he did it was to buy things for the college or take visitors from other educational institution to lunch. He said he would get the credit card statements for his own card each month and then attach the relevant receipts and give the documents to the accountant.

The deputy director of public prosecutions, Patrick Moran, had told the jury in his opening statement on the case that a lack of checks and balances at the college as well as the trust placed in Syed by the board, ministry and senior staff at the university, including the chief accountant, paved the way for him to cover up his own lavish spending for months.

When Syed was called on to support the obviously personal transaction, when the auditors were doing their work in March 2008, he created a false credit card policy that purported to allow those with the college cards to entertain “high-end clients” and “visiting dignitaries” and buy them gifts.

Moran said, however, that no one else appeared to have seen the document or know about it. The document’s history implied that it was modified by Syed on the day he realised the auditors had acquired copies of the real and full credit card statements from the banks. The prosecutor had told the jury this was an attempt by Syed “to pull the wool over the eyes of the auditors”.