KINGSTON, Jamaica – People’s National Party (PNP) senior member Phillip Paulwell says he was unaware of the transfer of $31 million – made in three tranches – from Dutch oil-lifting firm Trafigura Beheer to an account operated by then PNP general secretary Colin Campbell nearly 16 years ago when the party formed the government.

“I know of no such transfers,” Paulwell said in response to Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, Andrea Martin Swaby, who had asked him why the transfer was made.

According to Paulwell, the first time he heard about CCOC Association, the account operated by Campbell, was when then Opposition Leader Bruce Golding mentioned it in Parliament.

In October 2006, Golding brought the Trafigura affair to public attention when he revealed that the firm, which traded oil for Jamaica on the international market, had donated $31 million to CCOC Association. At the time, Campbell was the minister of information and development and also general secretary of the PNP. The money was transferred to the account just prior to the PNP’s annual conference that year.

Conflictingly, Trafigura Beheer said the money was part of a commercial agreement, while the PNP maintained that it was a donation to the party. It is illegal under Dutch law for companies to make donations to political parties.

Paulwell took the stand under oath in the Trafigura affair on Monday afternoon and, like the prior witness Norton Hinds, indicated ignorance to most of the questions asked about the Dutch oil-lifting firm and CCOC. This despite the Member of Parliament for Kingston East and Port Royal having expressed an eagerness to give evidence in the matter about the questionable $31-million donation by Trafigura to the PNP Government in 2006.

“I’ve been waiting 16 years for this,” Paulwell said as he was about to take the stand.

Former Prime Minister and PNP President Portia Simpson Miller, as well as Robert Pickersgill, Paulwell, Campbell, and Hinds were scheduled to testify in open court about the donation.

However, lawyers representing Simpson Miller have applied for her to be excused from testifying. Her lawyer, K D Knight indicated that an “urgent” application for a court order was filed last week and that the application is supported by an affidavit from Dr Denise Eldemire Shearer, Professor of Public Health and Ageing at the University of the West Indies, Mona.