PHILIPSBURG--Former managing director Henry Lynch's violation of the St. Maarten Housing Development Foundation's (SMHDF's) entertainment allowance by more than NAf. 35,000 for the year 2014 included numerous brothel visits.

 

The full redundancy letter to Henry Lynch, served to him by SMHDF attorney Jairo Bloem on February 4, has come to light via an anonymous source, resulting in the emergence of more details about his actions used to justify the foundation's dissolving of his service agreement.

 

Details left out of a press release by Bloem based on said letter include examples of wrongful behaviour and excuses that were found not to be credible. The resulting article called "SMHDF dumps Lynch for financial mismanagement" was published in the March 11 edition of The Daily Herald.

 

The letter recalls that a wrench had been thrown into investigations after former Minister of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure Maurice Lake – identified by his position, but not his name – had intervened.

 

The press release described Lynch's refusal to attend meetings where he was expected to give account of his actions, as well as "unsatisfactory, incomplete and untruthful answers."

 

The letter further shows that during one meeting, Lynch threatened to leave if two members of the management team, who had been brought in for advisory roles only, did not go away. He reportedly deemed them "inferior" and "instigators," and reportedly refused to cooperate reasonably.

 

Some 10 grounds on which the termination was premised were listed "amongst others" in the press release.

 

Lynch was said to have employed SMHDF employees structurally for work in personal projects in his companies and consequently partially financing the construction of these projects at the foundation's expense. The letter adds that Lynch's claim that it pertained to some employees who were on the site of one of his projects only during lunchtime, now that family members were said to be living there, was deemed inaccurate and incomplete.

 

A structural personal use of the SMHDF credit card had been described, to the tune of more than NAf. 100,000 over the years, with expenditures either not being accounted for or not properly and truthfully so.

The letter further shows that Lynch claimed it had been done by accident through pulling the wrong card out of his wallet. However, this was deemed not credible because of the frequency and extent of the transactions, because in the majority of cases he did not show the invoices and because of the fact that misleading listings were used; for example, labelling local hotel purchases for himself as "travel and lodging."

 

Lynch reportedly had said that it should be up to the accounting department to determine what expenses are personal and what should be covered by the company, but Bloem said he effectively had made it impossible for them to do so.

 

A violation of the entertainment allowance by more than NAf. 35,000 for the year 2014 and making expenditures that completely did not fit the goal and scope of SMHDF business activities were described. The letter further showed that the picture had become even more sombre in consideration of previous years, and that the expenditures not fitting the company's scope included "multiple brothel transactions."

 

Concerning a violation of his gasoline allowance and untruthfully maintaining that this allowance did not apply to him, the letter also states that Lynch claimed a limit could not be instated because of rising gasoline prices and that he had applied the gasoline allowance limit to all company cars, which points to the fact that he knew better.

 

Finally, a point was made about deliberately allowing a certain contractor using three companies clearly linked to this contractor, possibly by means of so-called "Strawman-constructions," to participate on various occasions in public tenders as if they were separate companies. "The consequence thereof is that of the 19 projects realised in 2013, 13 were granted to in essence one and the same contractor, for in total NAf. 3,614,217.30."

In relation to this point, Lynch reportedly refused to intervene and threatened that if he had to, it would "open a can of worms."

 

Lynch was further instructed to return the company vehicle, credit card and all other documents and assets in his possession to the office by noon the following day. This should have been done on his suspension in December, the letter stated, adding "for the second time" that there would e consequences if this were not done in time.

In this light, the contents of Lynch's bag still would be

held, and he would be informed of the decision regarding his bag ¬¬– which had been seized – by the following day. He was told that he could pick up the empty bag on that day.

 

The letter adds that the working relationship between the two parties had been irreparably damaged.

 

The Daily Herald

 

Related article:

- SMHDF dumps Henry Lynch for financial mismanagement