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Rodney Wilkinson the Former Bagman for Owen Arthur Protected by the Political Class

Rodney Wilkinson Released from Prison, FINALLY! In September 2014 Owen Arthur’s bagman and CEO of the Hotel and Resorts Ltd known as GEMS was implicated in one of the biggest vehicle scams to hit Barbados.  He faced 67 charges involving the sale of several cars totalling about $4 million. He was remanded to Dodds Prison.…

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Rodney Wilkinson Released from Prison, FINALLY!

From left, fraud accused Rodney Wilkinson, accompanied by businessman Lionel Riley and attorney Marlon Gordon,
Fraudster Rodney Wilkinson (l), Lionel Riley (c) and attorney Marlon Gordon (r) – November 1, 2014

In September 2014 Owen Arthur’s bagman and CEO of the Hotel and Resorts Ltd known as GEMS was implicated in one of the biggest vehicle scams to hit Barbados.  He faced 67 charges involving the sale of several cars totalling about $4 million. He was remanded to Dodds Prison.

On the 31 October 2014 Wilkinson’s lawyer was able to secure bail of 1.5 million with three sureties. Three years and some later we ask the question- What is the status of the RODNEY WILKINSON CASE?

The BU household is of the view that although the prima facie case being tried is concerned with a vehicle scam- given the deep relationships Wilkinson maintained with prominent members of the political class before his interdiction- the bigger issue is how a privileged group of people are given reins to trample our laws for personal benefit. This is the perfect case for the newly installed Director of Public Prosecutions Donna Babb-Agard QC on the eve of a general election to send a loud message to those with ears to hear, there is a new sheriff in RH town!

77 responses to “Rodney Wilkinson the Former Bagman for Owen Arthur Protected by the Political Class”

  1. Underworld Whistleblower Avatar
    Underworld Whistleblower

    Another crooked Bagman of Owen Arthur was David Shorey cut from the same cloth as Rodney Wilkinson

  2. Artax Avatar
    Artax

    @ David BU

    Interesting “debate” on today’s “Brass Tacks” with Lynette, Grenville Phillips II and Ryan Straughn. I tuned in late………but it seems as though a representative of the DLP is not there.

  3. Frustrated Businessman: Animal Farm sequel playing out in Bim. Avatar
    Frustrated Businessman: Animal Farm sequel playing out in Bim.

    I understand Hal’s point and I’m sure he understands mine.

    When someone in charge spews shite that makes no sense, thinking people dis-engage.

    It doesn’t matter whether the shite came from his underlings or his interpretation of what he was told by his ‘experts’ is beyond his grasp, Sinckler was never going to move our economy onto a recovery footing because the people he needs to make any plan work know he is a crook and an idiot.

    The fact that he is a bombastic and belligerent crook and idiot is irrelevant.

  4. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    Frustrated Businessman: Animal Farm sequel playing out in Bim. January 25, 2018 at 11:34 AM #

    You got it in one. The minister (CEO) is the person who must take ownership of the policy, but it does not mean s/he is responsible for working out the details. That is what briefings by the team are for. But when the proverbial hits the fan it is the minister who takes the flak.
    Sinckler is obstinate, stubborn, arrogant, over-confident and other things. He is simply a bad minister with an equally bad prime minister who is afraid to rein him in. The net result is that the nation suffers.
    The issue is not if he is a good book keeper; rather, it is if he is a good team leader. I have written speeches and heard them being spoken by others as if they were their own. That was good leadership. The speaker (leader) does not have to sit down and write all his/her own speeches.

  5. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Hal Austin January 25, 2018 at 11:05 AM
    “Not so. A minister of finance is a politicians, not an accountant or economist. The minister has an army of assistants to do the donkey work for him; what s/he must be is someone who listens and takes advice, which is not Sinckler’s strong point.”

    Neither was Sir Lloyd Sandiford or David Thompson. So your ‘point’ about ‘listening and taking advice’ is rather banal.

    Isn’t such an approach to decision-making the ‘expected’ hallmark of any good minister or leader at any high level involving technical matters?

    What any good minister of finance ought to capable of doing is not the preparation of any spreadsheet with ‘exotic’ looking numbers but understanding the impact of those ‘summarized’ numbers on the wider economy and on the lives of the general population.

    For that very reason a minister of finance should be equipped with the basic numeracy skills acquired at the eleven plus stage of assessment to be able to tell the difference between 0.07 and 0.7 and appreciate the impact of imposing a tax at the rate of 0.3 % and one of the magnitude of 3%.
    The current MoF might be able to bullshit taxpayers and promise them refunds 3 years in the waiting while envelopes are being stuffed by his BRA.

    But to not know the impact of increasing an NSRL from 2% to 10% and to argue that it is only an 8% increase is certainly more than confabulatory obfuscating to even high-flying financial journalists like you, Hal.

  6. David Avatar
    David

    @Artax Prodigal

    Just tuning in.

  7. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Hal Austin January 25, 2018 at 11:47 AM
    “Sinckler is obstinate, stubborn, arrogant, over-confident and other things. He is simply a bad minister with an equally bad prime minister who is afraid to rein him in. The net result is that the nation suffers..”

    Sounds as if a certain boffin from the world of journalism has finally decided to do some much needed introspection and is looking at the man in his self-made mirror.

    Self-criticism instead self-adulation is always the better medicine to cure a bad case of ‘obstinacy, arrogance, over-confidence’ all fed with an oversupply ignorance and stupidity

    So Hal my man, when are you going to go back home and show the Bajan jokers not only how to write speeches and have them read aloud by the circus of political parrots but to also to walk the walk by implementing the many proposals contained in those very speeches fit only to be laid in cow pens to receive the fertilizing output from their behinds?

  8. David Avatar
    David

    Grenville and Lynette demonstrated a lack of the historical in their responses to the PSV caller. It was Tom Adams who levied the unusually high PSV fees as a punitive measure to react to the indiscipline that manifested back then.

  9. Enuff Avatar
    Enuff

    Hal

    I do not support the idea that a minister must be an expert in the area of his/her portfolio. All I am saying is that Sinckler intended to justify not selling CBC by any means necessary even if it meant telling an untruth.

  10. David Avatar
    David

    @enuff

    Let us agree that while the MoF does not have to know how to use an abacus he or she must have a high level of financial intelligence. Does Sinckler infuse confidence in those about him that he qualifies?

  11. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    Enuff January 25, 2018 at 3:17 PM #

    I do not support the idea that a minister must be an expert in the area of his/her portfolio. All I am saying is that Sinckler intended to justify not selling CBC by any means necessary even if it meant telling an untruth. (Quote)

    Why the mad rush to sell CBC. Those of us who remember CBC when it first started, it was a decent television station, capable of competing with the best in the world. The situation then was that management was outsourced and the local presenters – Vic Brewster, Marva Manning, et al – were all competent.
    Quite often with the Barbadianisation of jobs, we normalise mediocrity. A far better and more economical strategy will be the auctioning of a license for a second television station, while at the same time removing political interference with CBC.

  12. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    I am told Sinckler has a post-graduate degree in international trade from Cave Hill – an economic degree.

  13. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Hal Austin January 25, 2018 at 3:35 PM
    “A far better and more economical strategy will be the auctioning of a license for a second television station, while at the same time removing political interference with CBC.”

    The Internet has put paid to such a scenario ever occurring in the current Barbados.

    The economics cannot justify the sane investment in a multi-player sector with a dwindling viewing audience drawn to the nostalgia of the traditional T.V. watching.

    The government has only Hobson’s choice.

    Let some ‘entrepreneurial’ entity or persons take CBC off its hands and charge them an annual license fee with specific conditions of compulsory broadcasting, free of advertising charges, notices of national import.

    That kind of arrangement has been around for donkey years. There is no longer any reason why the State would want to compete with the private sector in a so-called highly educated society whose members should be able to differentiate broadcasting shit from T.V. shite.

  14. Enuff Avatar
    Enuff

    Hal

    Keep up–I am not talking about selling or not selling, but about misleading to make a political point. International trade is an Economic degree? You’re all over the place.

    David
    Note I said expert, as oppose to understanding. lmao

  15. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    Enuff January 25, 2018 at 3:17 PM #

    All I am saying is that Sinckler intended to justify NOT (my caps) selling CBC by any means necessary even if it meant telling an untruth. (Quote)

    The inverse of not selling is to sell, thus my response. He can only justify NOT selling if there was pressure to sell.

  16. Christopher o dat ilk Jnr Avatar
    Christopher o dat ilk Jnr

    Dave,

    What do you know of the Bajan cretin who beat the Canadian woman to death on a beach in Barbados?

  17. Bonny an’ de wax guy in Oistins murdah ah lie Avatar
    Bonny an’ de wax guy in Oistins murdah ah lie

    Dave,

    What do you know of the Bajan cretin who celebrated the vicious murder of a Canadian tourist on a Barbados beach?

    Murda ah lie cricket an lilbaby Jeebuz

  18. Dr. Simple Simon Avatar
    Dr. Simple Simon

    @Artax January 25, 2018 at 7:07 AM “upper echelons”

    Upper echelons my @ss. 50 or 60 years ago we like Ninja Man were all barefoot, and raggedy pants. And Ninja too deserves a presumption of innocence.

    That said it should not take three years, or four, or more for Rodney or Ninja Man to have their day in court.

    If that is indeed happening the state/judicial system is mistreating both gentlemen.

    And that is WRONG.

  19. Dr. Simple Simon Avatar
    Dr. Simple Simon

    @Artax January 25, 2018 at 10:11 AM “During a press conference held on January 8, 2014…
    Sinckler said government was reviewing the functions of 19 statutory corporations with a view to consolidating their operations…To date, statutory corporation’s status quo remains the same.

    But, but, but, that was 4 years and 17 days ago.

    How can that be?

  20. Dr. Simple Simon Avatar
    Dr. Simple Simon

    @Hal Austin January 25, 2018 at 10:16 AM “A minister of finance is not a bloody book keeper of second-rate accountant. Chris Sinckler may be incompetent and should not have been in his job fore the last seven years, but tinkering with numbers on a spreadsheet is not his job. He employs underlings to do that.”

    Most of your so called underlings went to school, college and university with Chris, and many of them have done better in their in their academic and professional life that he has.

    So by what measure are you calling them underlings?

    And Chris does not employ anybody.

    Chris is employed by the taxpayers of Barbados, as are your so called underlings.

  21. Dr. Simple Simon Avatar
    Dr. Simple Simon

    Frustrated Businessman: Animal Farm sequel playing out in Bim. January 25, 2018 at 10:30 AM “It is clear to me and everyone else holding the purse-strings of our economy that Sinckler has none…The people who need to have confidence in this economy for it to function are not the same idiots who voted for him.”

    And who are the idiots who provided the campaign financing which permitted the DLP to attain office twice? Are you one of those moneyed idiots frustrated businessman? Because it seems to me that there is more than one set of idiots in this thing.

  22. Dr. Simple Simon Avatar
    Dr. Simple Simon

    @Well Well & Cut N’ Paste At Your Service January 25, 2018 at 8:38 AM “Or Hallam Nicholls.”

    Or David Shorey?

  23. Gabriel Avatar
    Gabriel

    Lynette showed her ignorance today.She made the point that the Minister of Health is a qualified engineer and is therefore qualified to make a professional input into the Sewage fiasco.Grenville had to correct her.She must have been embarrassed to make that faux pas as leader of a political party.Elementary mistakes like that suggest a rocky path to leadership.

  24. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    Lynette is out of her league.
    A clear case of the Peter principle.
    She sounded like a senior clerical assistant.
    But because our current political leaders are such clowns, even coherent clerks are options.

    Grenville makes the most sense of all …by far.
    His message however is lost in a kind of contemptuous abruptness….
    He actually reminds Bushie a bit of Barrow and Adams.

  25. de pedantic Dribbler Avatar
    de pedantic Dribbler

    @BushTea, as Phillips` messaging director you would be formidable but let’s be real, nonetheless.

    How in the name of nimble politicking can Phillips remind you a bit of Adams or Barrow!

    Of course they are all arrogant, type A personalities but so what.

    In which platform manifesto would you see either of the two gentlemen offering a justice reform of charging a petty criminal 10 times the value of his theft!

    I did not hear the wise man today so maybe he enunciated how he will pay the nation’s bills after removal of the VAT, reduce income taxes and so on but do you also compare those strategies to those gentleman.

    We all like Phillips as a decent, focused achiever but in a politically charged environment to equate him to those political pit bulls – even, a bit – is insane.

  26. Well Well & Cut N' Paste At Your Service Avatar
    Well Well & Cut N’ Paste At Your Service

    “Or David Shorey?”

    Isnt he the dude sits on the board of CGI Insurance, all of them are incestous and very corrupt, not a single one of them has clean hands.

  27. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    Dr. Simple Simon January 25, 2018 at 8:06 PM #

    Most of your so called underlings went to school, college and university with Chris, and many of them have done better in their in their academic and professional life that he has.
    So by what measure are you calling them underlings? (Quote)

    The minister if top of the decision-making pyramid.

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