TODAY’S sitting of the ongoing Financial Sector Adjustment Company (Finsac) Enquiry will be held in private with the public and press barred, the commissioners declared yesterday.

According to Commissioner Worrick Bogle, today’s scheduled witness, Richard Downer had asked that his testimony be given in private.

“Mr Downer requested that the enquiry be held in-camera, we agreed to this based on the situation,” Bogle told the Observer yesterday.

In justifying a private sitting of the public Commission of enquiry, Bogle said that Downer’s testimony could possibly violate the sub judicae rule, barring comments on matters before the court.

“There are implications for people outside of the purview of the commission of enquiry,” noted Bogle, who is now serving as chair of the commission after the court last year booted Justice Boyd Carey.

“We may very well decide that nothing damaging came out after the day’s hearing,” said Bogle, adding that if such were the case information on Downer’s testimony would be made public.

But the commissioner’s declaration yesterday drew angry objection from attorney-at law Andrew Levy who is representing Thermo Plastics in a case against Downer in the Supreme Court.

“I do have a problem that the press and public will not be permitted,” Levy strongly protested. “There is no reason why the commission should grant a private hearing to Mr Downer,” he said insisting that the request was a ploy to keep information from the public.

At yesterday’s sitting Jean-Marie Desulme, former Thermo-Plastics managing director, accused Downer of over-billing the company to the amount of $29 million during his tenure as receiver after it was taken over by the National Commercial Bank (NCB) in the late 1990s.

NCB was, at the time, controlled by Finsac.

Desulme contended that his companies, Thermo Plastics and Plaspak, were never insolvent but were nonetheless put in receivership by NCB where he had a loan.

In an emotional testimony Desulme alleged that in one case Downer paid a production manager $2,500 per hour, but billed Thermo-Plastics at $7,000 per hour.

“He was making a profit of $4,500 per hour,” Desulme loudly declared.

Desulme also contended that records showed a Thermo-Plastics worker doing 24 hours per day for seven days.

“How can that be? He never slept!” commented Desulme, who’s father established Thermo Plastics in Jamaica after migrating from Haiti.

Yesterday, Levy told the commission that a forensic audit by Douglas Chambers corroborated claims that Downer had, in fact, siphoned funds from Thermo Plastics and its affiliate company.

Dennis Joslin, after his debt-collecting company acquired the Finsac portfolio, replaced Downer as Thermo Plastics’s receiver with Chambers.

Chambers, who was subsequently appointed as head of the state-owned Jamaica Urban Transit Company, was killed in 2008.

Stephen Shelton, the attorney representing Downer at yesterday’s sitting objected to the inclusion of Chambers’ statement but was overruled.