President of the Grenada Olympics Association (GOC) Bunny Wilson has lashed out at some executive members who are bent on creating only mischief.
In an exclusive interview with THE NEW TODAY, Wilson, a former Olympic boxer pointed in the direction of some “malicious persons” within the association whose only intention is “to stir up nasty things” and engage in “slander and nastiness”.
The GOC boss identified the Vice-President of the organisation Ralph Lord and the Treasurer Johnson Dion, an accountant by profession as among the undesirables.
According to Wilson, when he became President of GOC, it was his intention to clean out the “old guards” who were facing allegations of corruption but soon realised that it was not them but another group of persons who needed to be gotten rid of.
“It’s people like Mr. Lord and them that have to go,” he remarked.
GOC elections were held this past week and Lord and Dion were among some of the persons who lost their positions.
Wilson made mention of a scandal that occurred in volleyball a few years ago under the watch of Lord as President of the Grenada Volleyball Association.
He said that a previous Treasurer of GOC took out $6000.00 from the bank that the organisation approved for the Volleyball Association as scholarship funds for 5 athletes over a certain period of months.
“He is supposed to give them $200.00 monthly but he takes $6000.00 out of the bank, put it in his vehicle, the vehicle stayed open somebody stole the $6000.00. In the first place why are you taking out $6000.00 when you are paying them $1000.00 monthly?
“As if that wasn’t bad enough they got the children who are supposed to be receiving the money to sign a document to having received the money.
According to Wilson, the Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF) was called in to investigate the matter but the lawmen took the position that if the Treasurer paid back the money then the case would not go any further.
The GOC boss said he did not know if the individual paid any money back but what he knows is that the volleyball athletes who were on scholarship did not receive their money.
“This is factual,” he remarked.
Wilson also commented on the estimated $460, 000 that GOC had to repay to Olympic Solidarity (OS), an arm of the International Olympics Association (IOC) under the watch of former President Royston La Hee and the longstanding General Secretary Veda Bruno-Victor for funds they did not account for.
He spoke of negotiations being conducted by himself and Bruno-Victor which saw the money being reduced by half by OS.
He charged that no one heard the Lord group make any reference to this achievement on their part.
“We were able to negotiate it. We had a little piece of property that we bought to put the Olympic House – we used that to pay (OS) plus we paid back some from the coffers that were there.
THE NEW TODAY understands that Wilson’s wife, a former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in Scotiabank voluntarily came in to help GOC to put its financial house in order and was able to locate several of the vouchers.
According to Wilson, a lot of the money was paid back to OS and he vindicated the La Hee/Vedo Bruno-Victor executive of any wrongdoing and corruption in the OS issue.
He hinted that there was no case of stealing any money but what happened in some instances is that they agreed to give a particular sporting body $10, 000.00 for three months but instead gave some of the funds to another sporting body.
He said that one might get $7000.00 and the other received $3000.00.
Wilson noted that the previous La Hee executive simply did not go back and correct the situation with the organisation that was down to receive the $10, 000.00 but only got $7000.00.
“That kind of (thing) occurred. That kind of thing was more prevalent in this whole thing,” he remarked.
Wilson boasted that under his watch only $36, 000.00 had to be paid back to OS under his watch as compared to the over $400, 000 under the watch of a former executive.
The GOC boss stated that a lot of the money that the committee accumulated over the years went into building the multi-million dollar head office in the south of the island but there are those who will never reveal this kind of information.