THE Integrity Commission (IC) has recommended that the Financial Investigations Division (FID), Tax Administration Jamaica (TAJ) and the Financial Services Commission (FSC) take a closer look at the transactions and dealings of several companies with which Prime Minister Andrew Holness and at least one of his sons are affiliated. The transactions amount to more than $470 million.

At the same time, after much brouhaha over the non-certification of the prime minister’s statutory declarations over the past two years, during which he was repeatedly hammered by the parliamentary Opposition, the IC’s director of corruption prosecution concluded that it did not have enough evidence that Holness deliberately sought to mislead it when he failed to declare four bank accounts with a combined balance of just under $446,000.

Holness had explained that his mother added him to her account, so too his father, a livestock farmer. Another account on which he was listed had the names of his mother and sister.

The fourth account was in the name of Elizabeth Reid, a former constituency worker who Holness said he had encouraged to open the account 20 years earlier. He could not recall how his name came to be on that account.

Having declined to charge the prime minister for making a false statement because of the omissions, the IC has raised many questions in its 179-page investigation report about his business transactions.

The commission’s director of investigations (DI) concluded that there was no unexplained growth in the prime minister’s wealth when his assets and liabilities for the year 2021 were examined.

However, the DI said he found what appeared to be “unexplained growth” in a company set up by Holness with net worth of just over $1,930,000 which “cannot, without more, be justified by his known income and liabilities”.

According to the investigation report, the DI was hindered in his attempt to fully resolve this issue on the basis of Holness’ “refusal” to provide him with a breakdown of his expenses for the period covered by the investigation.

However, in a statement to Parliament on Tuesday, Holness said he rejected that finding, based on materiality and significance.

“While I have not had a chance to fully review the specifics of their calculations, just on a cursory review I have seen an error in figures they have used in their calculations,” Holness told Parliament.

In regard to the purchase of a bond by Holness on September 2, 2019, at a cost of US$94,000, the DI concluded that only US$61,892.98 was funded by the prime minister.

The DI said the remaining amount of US$32,107.02 was taken from funds apparently belonging to a registered charity, Positive Jamaica Foundation, of which the prime minister was, at the material time, a director.

The DI also said that Holness’s indication on July 16, 2024, that the full portion of the bond was erroneously attributed to him by a financial institution, “is misleading and unsupported by the evidence”. According to the report, the bond in question was called in 2020, and the principal and interest were paid to Holness.

According to the DI, the proceeds were incorporated into Holness’s assets which he holds in a company named Imperium. The DI said that the funding of the company, Positive Media, in which Imperium (wholly owned by Holness) was a majority shareholder before being replaced by one of his sons in 2022, raises several concerns as to the true nature of this company’s operations.

The IC said the conclusion is premised on Holness’ explanation as to the funding of the referenced company, wherein he indicated that Positive Media is funded by Imperium.

The report said the evidence suggests that Positive Media was funding Imperium rather than Imperium funding Positive Media. It noted that amounts totalling more than $70 million were transferred from Positive Media to Imperium and over $50 million from Imperium to Positive Media during the relevant period.

“A surplus of approximately $20 million remained in Imperium’s account. The foregoing will need to be ventilated by the relevant competent authority,” added the report.

The DI insisted that “this asset, in its totality was treated as belonging to Mr Holness in every material respect up to June 2024, when the DI’s investigations led to enquiries being made of Mr Holness as to the source of funds used to purchase the asset in issue.

“Mr Holness’s explanation in this regard must, therefore, for the foregoing reasons, be rejected and be deemed to be unsatisfactory,” the report stated.

The DI also concluded that the filing of nil income tax returns for the years 2021 and 2022, on the part of Imperium, Positive Media and another company named Estatebridge, all associated with Holness, in circumstances where those companies reported income and other business activities in their audited financial statements, poses significant tax compliance concerns.

Said the IC: “It is accepted and understood that a company, though operating at a loss, may well be in a position to offer loans. The live issue here, however, is whether the named companies had any income and expenses over the relevant period which were not disclosed in their returns to TAJ. The foregoing conduct on the part of the principals of Imperium, Estatebridge, Positive Media and Greenemarald prima facie, constitutes a fundamental undermining of the tax laws, and more particularly a breach of Section 99 (1) of the Income Tax Act. This breach deprived the Government of the opportunity to make an assessment as to whether any taxes were due for the years 2021 and 2022, in respect of the named companies and, if so, the amount due and payable”.

However Holness, in his statement to Parliament on Tuesday, insisted that he has complied with all obligations placed on him within the law. He also said that as far as he was aware, the company with which he is directly associated is compliant and up to date with its tax filings.

Separately, the investigation report flagged the appointment of Norman Brown, a business associate of the prime minister, and chairman of the Urban Development Corporation and the Housing Agency of Jamaica, as posing significant conflict of interest concerns.

“These concerns emanate from the fact that both entities fall under Mr Holness’s portfolio as minister of economic growth and job creation,” the IC said. However, it concluded that there is no direct evidence to suggest that there were any improprieties on the part of Holness and Brown.

The report also concluded that the conduct of Barita Investments in its grant of a $50-million loan to Imperium raises several prudential concerns. It said the conclusion is grounded in the fact that collateral said to have been provided for the loan either did not exist in the name of the borrower (Imperium), or did not exist at the material time.

However, the IC said that with so many unresolved issues it was unable to make any determination of illicit enrichment on the part of the prime minister.