THE $4.7-billion fraud at securities dealer Stocks and Securities Limited (SSL) which has impacted track icon Usain Bolt and more than 200 other people, is now firmly in the political domain.

On Sunday night Opposition leader and People’s National Party (PNP) President Mark Golding used a political platform to declare that a future PNP Government will leave no stone unturned in determining where Bolt’s and other clients’ money went. He also promised a commission of enquiry into the matter to determine how the massive fraud went undetected by the State’s regulatory agency.

The matter, which is before the court, was brought back into the spotlight last week when Bolt expressed displeasure at the length at time it was taking for him to recoup his missing funds. He also suggested that it was only the Government that could make that happen. Since his comments he has been criticised, including by at least one prominent member of the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) who suggested he should bear some responsibility for his lost investment. That prompted a response from his attorney, who alleged victim-shaming, and now the parliamentary Opposition, which has promised to get involved.

Golding made his promise while addressing a PNP meeting in the St Andrew West Central constituency of Prime Minister Andrew Holness to introduce Paul Buchanan as the party’s standard-bearer for the seat in the upcoming general election. The PNP president used the occasion to lay the blame squarely at the feet of the Government.

“It pains my heart to see what this Government is doing to the great sprinting legend of Jamaica, Usain Bolt,” Golding said in his address to Comrades.

“It is a disgrace; the man invested his money for his retirement in an institution regulated by the [Financial Services Commission]…regulatory body for investments in the country, and there was a massive fraud going on in there,” Golding added.

He alleged that when the fraud became public in January 2023, the then Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke was negligent in dealing with the matter.

He also said that the prime minister took his money out of SSL before it collapsed.

In a statement in January 2023 the prime minister denied allegations in the public sphere at the time that he had borrowed money from SSL. He disclosed that while he opened an account with SSL in 2008, he “liquidated the last remaining financial instrument managed by SSL” on his behalf and gave instructions for his account to be closed in September 2021.

“I have no funds currently with SSL and I have not done any business with SSL since September 2021,” Holness said.

Nonetheless, Golding said Bolt and others were left to “suffer …massive losses — in his case, millions and millions of US dollars that he raised through his exploits on the track to bring glory to Jamaica”.

He questioned, “What can go so?

“When we form Government no stone will be left unturned to chase down that money for Mr Bolt and the others. No stone will be left unturned,” Golding declared.

And he repeated a call he made last Thursday for the Kroll report to be made public.

“We want the Kroll report to see what has happened. And there must be a commission of enquiry into the regulatory failures that would allow an institution like that — licensed to deal in securities and manage people’s money — to have been operating for years and carrying out such massive fraud, and the regulator let them go ahead until it was too late,” Golding charged.

He said the PNP will get to the bottom of it, stating that the signal must be sent to the Diaspora and others overseas that, “we take it seriously and that Jamaica is a place where you can come and invest your money”.

“This Government is letting the people down and letting the side down and it is a disgrace,” he said.

During his budget debate presentation in March 2023, Dr Clarke disclosed that the Government had engaged the services of Kroll Associates UK Ltd to assist with the forensic probe into the SSL fraud.

“Arising from, writing to, and collaborating with the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office of the United Kingdom, this morning I signed a statement of work with Kroll Associates UK…” Clarke said.

He shared that Kroll Associates, the British subsidiary of the multinational risk and financial advisory firm, “will provide forensic audit investigative services to the Financial Investigations Division (FID) in its probe of the SSL matter”.

“Kroll will bring leading-edge technology which will support the FID in unravelling all aspects of this 13-year fraud and bring co-conspirators and accomplices to justice,” Clarke declared.

In September last year SSL indicated that it was advanced in its plans to pay back thousands of clients, noting that the payout was largely from the proceeds of the International Securities Client Portfolio sale, with an approximate value in excess of US$30 million or $4.7 billion.

The JLP said at the time that it was not satisfied with the pace of the payback and urged the owners of SSL to do right by Bolt and others who have not recouped their funds which were allegedly fleeced by at least one employee of the investment company, wealth advisor Jean-Ann Panton who is now before the courts.

Since January 2023 the investment house has been embroiled in the fraud scandal involving the loss of more than $4 billion from 200 accounts, including that of Bolt who reportedly lost more than US$12 million.