The parliamentary Opposition continues to press the Government to release the report undertaken by international forensic firm Kroll in the Stocks and Securities Limited (SSL) fraud matter.

Tensions flared in the Senate on Friday as Opposition senators Peter Bunting and Lambert Brown demanded the report and questioned whether the Government had something to hide.

Government Senator Abka Fitz-Henley interrupted Bunting on several occasions on a point of order during debate on a report on the Insolvency Act 2014, which is up for review.

Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce Senator Aubyn Hill had moved the motion for the report to be adopted.

Bunting, in his remarks, argued that “the country has spent a lot of money getting a forensic report from a leading firm that provides those services”.

“It’s referred to as the Kroll Report, it has been mentioned by the Minister of Finance …and I am concerned. I asked the minister to respond to this, whether the trustee for SSL has access to that report because, to my mind, in order for him to ensure that he can pursue all the assets that properly should be in the SSL pool and that can ultimately be available to settle the obligations of SSL to hundreds of Jamaicans — many of them older persons who will be totally devastated if they can’t get back substantial sums of their money or even not so old persons, but who have substantial exposure, and no matter how wealthy you may be, losing billions is going to hurt very badly. Not just the individual, but the reputation of Jamaica and our investment climate,” Bunting added.

“Remember, this was a regulated institution, so it’s not just any ordinary institution, [it was] regulated by Government, regulated by the FSC [Financial Services Commission],” Bunting continued.

“I believe we must have, or the public deserves to have, access to the Kroll report to know the truth of what happened at SSL, and the Government has been finding every excuse why not to publish it,” he said.

He also argued that the report was necessary to do justice to the more than 200 people, including track legend Usain Bolt, who have been affected by the $4.7 billion fraud.

At this point, Fitz-Henley rose on a point of order, stating that the standing orders “forbids imputing motive against members of the House”.

“The senator has suggested that the Government is trying to use every excuse to prevent proffering information into the public domain. The member is not only, in my view, violating the standing orders in terms of imputing motive to members of the House, he’s also misleading the Senate because what he’s alleged is false, it’s not true,” Fitz-Henley declared.

According to Fitz-Henley, the Government has taken unprecedented steps regarding the SSL matter and hired international assistance, “never done before regarding any international issue in this country”.

While Government senators applauded his intervention, Opposition Senator Lambert Brown shouted that Fitz-Henley’s intervention was “not a real point-of-order”.

Responding to Fitz-Henley, Bunting said, “The Government has made unprecedented efforts, that is true. They have made unprecedented efforts to suppress the report of the FSC”.

At this point he was interrupted by the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Charles Sinclair, who was presiding at the time. He told Bunting that he was imputing motive and pointed out that there may be issues of confidentiality why the report has not been publicly released.

Undeterred, Bunting insisted that the Government has refused to make the report available to either the trustee in the SSL matter or the public. He said the public has been left to draw their own conclusions. He also acknowledged that there may be confidential information in the Kroll report but argued that it can be redacted.

“It is common practice to redact things that may be sensitive in a report or violate the privacy of an individual,” said Bunting.

He insisted further that “there’s no justice for those who’re left out of pocket in this situation if reports paid for by taxpayers of Jamaica, if reports that are important, in terms of a trustee determining where he may pursue lines of investigation to recover funds that have been improperly spirited out of the entity, or the funds that it manages, and the Government refuses to make that available”.

At this point Fitz-Henley rose on another point of order which Bunting dismissed as “just interruptions”.

Fitz-Henley argued that the Kroll report was part of an investigative process involving a matter that is sub judice.

“It is not a simple matter as the Government of Jamaica involving ourselves in an investigative process and releasing a document into the public domain that is part of an investigative process,” he insisted.

Bunting countered, pointing out that the director of public prosecutions has indicated that the Kroll report is not being used in the single prosecution that is underway.

“So there is no sub judice with this issue about the Kroll report,” he said, and also questioned why the FSC report was not being made public.

“The question is: Why the secrecy?” he said.

Bunting warned that “with every passing day, the likelihood of recovering money that has been fraudulently spirited out is diminishing”. He pointed out that such funds would have gone through multiple financial institutions, multiple jurisdictions, “and it may just have been spent, expended”.

“So the longer the trustee has to wait to get relevant information that would inform his efforts at recovery, the less likely he will recover anything and the less that those who are owed money… the less likely that they will get a material settlement on the sums that are owed to them.”

“What is the insolvency legislation if Bolt loses money and the other people lose money. I hope we will fix that and fix that soon. Usain Bolt needs his money,” Senator Brown said during his contribution to the debate.