Amid Thursday morning’s protest by Jamaica College (JC) old boys demanding the resignation of Lance Hylton as chairman of the school board, Acting Principal Wayne Robinson insisted that there will be no let up in getting information on what he said was an unaccounted sum of more than $20 million raised for the school.

According to Robinson, the monies were raised for the Old Hope Road school by the old boys’ association during the tenure of former President Major Basil Jarrett.

Robinson had filed a lawsuit against Jarrett alleging that $3 million from the sale of school uniforms — which were given to the association in a fund-raising effort — were misappropriated.

However, last month Supreme Court judge Justice Opal Smith rejected Robinson’s suit on the grounds that he had no standing to bring such a claim in his personal capacity as principal of the school and that Major Jarrett was not a proper party to the claim as at all times he was acting as president of the JC Old Boys’ Association.

However, since then, 10 members of the board, including Robinson, have filed defamation suits against Jarrett.

On Thursday, Robinson told journalists that it was stated in Jarrett’s affidavit that the old boys are independent and autonomous of the school, meaning they can collect money on behalf of the school.

“These are monies that donors are giving to the school that pass through them and don’t come to the school. One of the reasons we wanted the financial statements presented formally to the school is because we want him to know we are accountable to the school. That is the issue. I saw two pages of documents showing over $20 million of funds that they allocated to administrative fees, commissions, and salaries during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Robinson said.

“But the office is here and they don’t pay rent, light bill, water, or security. So what are these administrative fees that come up to over $20 million in addition to commission and salaries? There is one paid employee and that employee is paid $100,000. We pay $50,000 out of that,” he said.

Robinson’s comments were in apparent response to a statement issued by JC old boy Peter Blake on Tuesday saying that during a Zoom meeting on March 24, JC Trust Chairman Derek Jones, after repeatedly denying ever receiving financial statements from Jarrett, was presented with an e-mail showing that he received five pages of financial statements dated June 4, 2022.

On a recording of the meeting shared with the media, Jones is heard saying, “The school has never received any form of accounting, audited or unaudited, from Major Jarrett.”

When a participant in the meeting asked Jones if he got a copy of the audited financial statements, Jones replied, “There are no audited statements. There has never been anything [that] is properly called an audited statement that has ever been produced. I received a copy of a set of financial statements as part of a reminder from Major Jarrett about attending a Jamaica College Old Boys’ Association meeting. The report of which they speak and the e-mail that you see on the screen is in response to the fact that Major Jarrett was inviting people to attend a JC Old Boys’ Association meeting and in that notice there were five pages of figures. Did I get a copy of that e-mail, yes. That is a different thing from saying that Major Jarrett has provided the account to the school.”

On Thursday, Robinson supported that argument, saying that Jarrett had not “sent anything officially to the school. This money is not uniform money. The uniform money that is outstanding is outside of the $20 million”.

Hylton, meanwhile, said there will be consequences if the matter is not pursued legally by the members of the board.

“The consequence of not pursuing this is anybody can say I am collecting money for a school. Jarrett sent a document to the old boys at a meeting, but he needs to formally do so,” Hylton said.

Blake, who was among the small group of old boys protesting outside the school, said the chief issue for him was the mismanagement of affairs at JC. He and the other protesters demanded that Robinson be appointed officially as principal, as that, he said, would give Robinson authority to make decisions without unnecessary intervention from the board.

He also rubbished a claim by Hylton and Robinson that the protesters were Jarrett sympathisers, saying that they are a group of concerned JC old boys who want to see the school shine instead of receive bad publicity.

“The headmaster and Basil Jarrett ended up in court. I personally spoke to Wayne
— who is my friend, who I helped to recruit to come to Jamaica College
— to just leave the situation alone in the best interest of the school and don’t bother to go to court. He felt so aggrieved that he said he could not act on my advice. It is a personal matter between Wayne and …Basil Jarrett. It went to court under the name Jamaica College. Wayne lost, but somebody is going to have to foot the bill. When I add fees for the defence and the other lawyers, it’s over $20 million I got,” Blake said.

“JC has financial resources. The two primary accounts are the accounts managed by the trust and the account managed by the JC Foundation. I am not claiming there is anything dishonest. What I am claiming is mismanagement. Large amounts of those funds have been paid out as a settlement to Ruel Reid. I was one who said enough of Ruel Reid, we are suffering too much reputational damage. We need to get the issue done and if it is going to cost us money, so be it. A settlement was worked out with Mr Reid,” Blake said.

Reid, who was seconded to the Government and served as education minister, has been before the court since October 2019 on charges of defrauding the Ministry of Education and Caribbean Maritime University of millions of dollars.

He was forced to resign from the Andrew Holness-led Cabinet in March 2019.

In November 2021 it was reported that he was set to receive $23.3 million as a settlement package after stepping down as principal of JC ahead of the expiration of special leave that was granted to him when he was appointed education minister.

The Ministry of Education was to provide $16.1 million to Reid, while JC was to pay an additional $7.2 million.

The education ministry had rejected a recommendation by the school board that the special leave be extended an additional five years.

On Tuesday, Jarrett told the Observer that the lawsuits filed against him stem from a vendetta and he intends to defend them vigorously.

“I don’t really have a position on what is going on at JC, I leave them to sort out those matters on their own. My only interest now is getting justice in the courts. They have cost the school millions of dollars, and there is no way to even quantify the reputational damage they have done, not just to me but to Jamaica College and the boys at the school, and I think the old boys are doing the right thing by holding them accountable for their actions,” he said.