The Board of Directors of the state-run Grenada Development Bank (GDB) has lost confidence in its General Manager, John Dumont and wants him replaced as a matter of urgency.
 |
John Dumont |
Informed sources told GRENADA TODAY that the Board has officially written to Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Dr. Keith Mitchell urging him to take the necessary action to have Dumont removed from the top job at the bank.
Dumont, a former employee of the National Commercial Bank (NCB) now called Republic Bank G'da Limited, is currently on "holiday".
According to a source close to the board, the act governing the operations of the bank stipulates quite clearly that only the Minister of Finance can hire or fire the General Manager of GDB.
He said the Board wrote to Prime Minister Mitchell nearly a month ago indicating to him its position on the future of the bank manager."Well we have not heard anything from him (Dr. Mitchell) yet on this particular matter. It should be clearly understood that we cannot remove Mr. Dumont from the post.
The act states specifically that that falls within the domain of the Minister of Finance who happens to be the Prime Minister at this point in time", he remarked.
Private sector sources told this newspaper that at the centre of the Dumont issue is a cheque of EC$17, 000.00 that was made available by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) for the Grenada Employers Federation (GEF) to undertake a training workshop for members.
A GEF insider said that the money was paid directly into a bank account belonging to Dumont who at the time was President of the grouping for employers in the country.
He stated that this was a one-off arrangement since the ILO could not make a direct payment to the facilitator of the workshop due to the fact that it could not directly contract retired persons.
The person who conducted the workshop for GEF is a retired former Commissioner of Labour.
The source said that GEF officials made repeated requests to Dumont to hand over the cheque but the funds were not forthcoming from him for months.
However, after a long-contracted period, Dumont allegedly eventually handed over the money to the federation.
A GEF official also confirmed to this newspaper that the organisation had approached government on the money issue with Dumont and that a promise was made to conduct an investigation into the matter.
Dumont could not be reached at the time of going to press on this latest bit of information that the members of GDB Board had made a move to have him axed as manager.
But two weeks ago when this newspaper spoke to the GDB boss, he denied reports on the island that he had lost his job at the bank.
Dumont said that he was on "holiday" and was due to return to work before month-end.
When GRENADA TODAY called GDB on Tuesday, a bank employee who answered the telephone told this newspaper that Dumont was on holiday and that she did not know when he was due back to work.
Former employee with government's Department of Audit, Mervyn Lord has been acting as GDB manager for the past month.
Apart from the ILO money issue, GDB is also said to be beset by internal problems.
There are reports that an official of the bank was replaced forthwith by government after information surfaced that he was defaulting on a $300, 000 loan that was granted to him.
