The spirit of Trafigura lives; it’s no duppy
If we are ever in doubt about what to do, it is a good rule to ask ourselves what we shall wish on the morrow that we had done. — John Lubbock
Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou, who served as prime minister of France from 1962 to 1968 and president of the French Republic from 1960 until his death in 1974, famously said: “When General Charles de Gaulle died, France became a widow.”
It would not be a stretch to say that when Norman Manley, the founding president of the People’s National Party (PNP), died, his party began an unenviable process of inglorious descent into what might best be described as a state of permanent political gestation.
Today, the PNP is a party devoid of leadership. Norman Manley’s party is besieged by intellectual dwarfs, political journeymen, professional politicians, and political hearse and ambulance chasers who believe, like “chairman for life” Robert Pickersgill: “We believe it is best for us to form the Government, therefore, anything that will lead us or cause us to be in power is best for the PNP and best for the country.”
This Pickersgillian dictum doubtless informed the thinking of several direct and indirect participants and players in what is known as the Trafigura money scandal. When will the Trafigura baby be born? The foetus has evidently taken on the persona of those who caused its conception.
Last week this newspaper carried this headline: ‘Three more months’ wait for Trafigura ruling’. The story read inter alia: “The Appeal Court is to rule on April 28 whether Portia Simpson Miller and the other four members of the People’s National Party (PNP) should answer questions in open court about the $31-million donation the party received from Dutch oil firm Trafigura in 2006.
“Court of Appeal President Dennis Morrison, and justices Hillary Phillips and Patrick Brooks on Thursday completed hearing legal arguments from lawyers representing Simpson Miller, PNP Chairman Robert Pickersgill, Phillip Paulwell, Colin Campbell, and Norton Hinds, as well as the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions [DPP], which is representing the Netherlands Government under the Mutual Assistance Criminal Matters Act.
“The appeal was brought by the PNP following Justice Lennox Campbell’s ruling, in 2011, that the party officials should be questioned in open court after the DPP tried unsuccessfully to question them in private.
“The five appellants were asked to answer questions regarding an investigation by the Netherlands Government into the payment made to the PNP, which was the governing party at the time, while it had an oil-lifting agreement with the country.
“The money was deposited into an account named CCOC, which turned out to be the acronym for ‘Colin Campbell Our Candidate’ to which certain members of the PNP were signatories.
“The money was transferred to the account just prior to the PNP’s annual conference that year.” (
Jamaica Observer, January 21, 2017)
Many Jamaicans have heard repeatedly that Trafigura is a Dutch oil firm. But is there far more that we should know about this company? What is the best yardstick to judge Trafigura’s Customer Human Responsibility Quotient (CHRQ)? [My coinage.]
I believe the best way to judge a company’s CHRQ is to measure how it treats customers who consume its goods and services or who have no choice but to consume its goods and services. This matrix, I believe, gives a credible insight into Trafigura. The good book says, “By their fruits we shall know them.”
This article published in the Times of Malta on February 8, 2013 and penned by Arnold Cassola speaks volumes. It said, among other things: “Frank Sammut, better known as Karola by his teammates during his time in the 1970s as a discreet goalkeeper for Exiles water polo club, is facing accusations that he took commission from the Trafigura oil company registered in Holland in relation to oil procurement.
“It is alleged this was paid through a Swiss bank account whose beneficiary was a Gibraltar company owned by Sammut.
“It is also alleged that businessman George Farrugia played a pivotal role in Enemalta’s oil procurement decisions, while oil commodities companies Total and Trafigura worked closely with Enemalta’s top officials, the former MOBC [Mediterranean Offshore Bunkering Company Limited] chief Sammut and Farrugia himself.
“In recently revealed correspondence, Trafigura’s Naeem Ahmed, the employee based in UK, appears to tell Farrugia: ‘As promised I have tried to increase the commission rates, I have been unsuccessful, so for all business for 2004 commissions it must remain 10 per cent and will only increase to 15 per cent for all new business for 2005.’
“These sums were allegedly deposited in Farrugia’s Swiss bank account in the Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild in Geneva.
“Who are Trafigura? The oil procurement case in Malta is not the first scandal they have been involved in.
“They are involved in the Probo Koala case, where Trafigura dumped toxic waste in Ivory Coast.
In 2010, they were fined €1 million in the Netherlands for the illegal export of the waste through Amsterdam.
“Claude Dauphin, who is in charge of Trafigura, avoided a personal court case through a settlement in which he agreed to pay a €67,000 fine. Greenpeace NL and Amnesty International wrote an extensive report about the Proko Koala scandal:
issuu.com/greenpeaceinternational/docs/the-toxic-truth/1.
“Malta is mentioned as well in this scandal, since part of the generation of the toxic waste on board the ship in 2006 seems to have taken place in Maltese waters.
“In fact, between April and June 2006 three shipments of coker naphtha were washed aboard the ship Probo Koala in different parts of the Mediterranean.
“In April of 2006 Trafigura tried to offload the waste in Malta, without success, thanks also to the responsibility of the officials at the Malta shipyards who told Trafigura: ‘Sorry, not even Malta shipyards can accept these slops due to chemical content.’ At the end the toxic waste was offloaded in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Trafigura Beheer BV is officially registered in the Netherlands.
“But in reality Trafigura is a complicated corporate structure. Trafigura Beheer BV in Amsterdam/Amstelveen is mainly a fiscal address. Trafigura’s centres of operations are in London and Switzerland. Co-founder Dauphin is chairman of Trafigura Beheer BV and CEO of the London subsidiary, Trafigura Ltd.
“The Dutch public prosecutor is investigating bribery claims in relation to Dauphin in Jamaica, but the probe is progressing very slowly.”
Here again are some more Trafigura fruits that are just as insipid.
“The Swiss commodity traders Trafigura and Vitol are among a number of companies accused of exporting what campaigners call ‘African quality’ diesel, blending products in European facilities to create fuels with sulphur levels that are sometimes hundreds of times over European limits, according to a three-year research project by the Swiss NGO Public Eye.
“When the fuel is burned, the sulphur is released into the atmosphere as sulphur dioxide and other compounds that are major contributors to respiratory diseases such as bronchitis and asthma.
“Trafigura made headlines when a ship it had chartered dumped toxic waste in the Ivory Coast a decade ago, and the company’s lawyers attempted to gag the press from reporting on a draft report into the incident.” (The
UK Guardian, Thursday September 15, 2016)
“To know what people really think, pay regard to what they do, rather than what they say,” said French mathematician and philosopher René Descartes.
Back to Jamaica, here are some facts that many have tried, diligently, to wipe from public discourse. These are not “alternative facts”, to borrow a laughable phrase used by Kellyanne Conway, senior adviser to US President Donald Trump.
1. In September 2006 Trafigura transferred the equivalent of US$585,000 ($38.6 million) to CCOC. (US rate in September 2006 was $66). CCOC — conceivably Colin Campbell Our Candidate — then drew cheques totalling $30 million to SW Services, a PNP campaign account. When first asked, Colin Campbell said CCOC did not mean anything. Norton Hinds revealed it meant ‘Colin Campbell Our Candidate’. What happened to the other $8.6 million?
2. Following these revelations, Colin Campbell resigned as minister of information and PNP general secretary. If nothing was wrong with the Trafigura transaction, why did he resign?
3. Following the donation revelation, we heard in Parliament that no government official requested any donation from Trafigura. Trafigura executives flew to Jamaica and met with then Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller for half an hour.
What did the prime minister discuss with the Trafigura representatives? Are we to believe that these officials visited Jamaica House to see its verdant lawns? What did the then prime minister know and when did she know it?
A story in this newspaper dated January 18, 2017 with the screaming headline ‘Trafigura an exercise in futility, says Knight’, doubtless tells us the mind of the PNP:
“People’s National Party (PNP) lawyers yesterday declared that the Trafigura issue is a ‘dead’ matter and should be buried, as Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller and the other four members of the party cannot be forced to subject themselves to questioning in open court.”
‘Attorney challenges public questioning of PNP officials in Trafigura matter’, another headline in this newspaper read. It gave added insight into the mind of the party on Trafigura:
“Attorney K D Knight, who is representing Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller in the Trafigura matter, this morning told the Court of Appeal that efforts made by Dutch authorities to question People’s National Party (PNP) officials about the $31-million donation is an ‘exercise in futility’ unless an official voluntarily provides a statement.
“The attorney, who is currently making submissions before the judge to appeal the Supreme Court’s decision that PNP officials should be questioned in open court, argued that the Supreme Court judge erred in his decision and his interpretation that the proceeding was a hearing.
“Knight also argued that questions and answers are always done in private outside of the public glare and never in public, and that the court has no jurisdiction to conduct questioning.”
Are there matters of exceptional public interest involved in the Trafigura saga? Are the individuals involved public officials? “When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself as public property,” said Thomas Jefferson.
I agree.
As a citizen, I am heartened by the soundings from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions as outlined in this
Jamaica Observer article of January 19, 2017:
“The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) yesterday urged the Court of Appeal to ‘err on the side of caution’ and uphold the Supreme Court ruling that Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller and four other party members should be questioned about the $31-million Trafigura donation given to the People’s National Party (PNP) in public.
“Assistant DPP Andrea Martin-Swaby, during her submission in the Court of Appeal yesterday, said that given the issue involves an international matter and that four of the appellants are public figures, the court process should be transparent and the ‘court should allow its processes to be transparent’.
“Martin-Swaby, in defending and supporting the public questioning ruling by Justice Lennox Campbell, maintained that the public interrogation of the appellants will put an end to swirling speculation in the public about the matter and put the allegations to rest.
“ ‘A less than open court runs the risk of losing public confidence,’ she said.
“At the same time, the assistant DPP said that, while the Mutual Assistance Criminal Matters Act did not give any indication as to whether or not the questioning should be done in public, the matter was left up to the judge to use his discretion and should not be faulted for his decision.
“She also stated yesterday that the questioning of the PNP officials was never meant to be a statement-taking exercise, challenging claims by the attorneys representing PNP that the questioning of their clients was an attempt to collect statements in furtherance of the Dutch investigation into the alleged case of bribery.”
We cannot afford to fall asleep on this Trafigura issue. Public trust is a matter of life and death.
The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil. — Marcus Tullius Cicero
Garfield Higgins is an educator; journalist; and advisor to the minister of education, youth and information. Send comments to the Observer or higgins160@yahoo.com.