Dear Editor,
It is with interest, that I read the article on the front page of The Daily Herald of December 13, 2018, headlined: “Brison pays past due training bill from Tourist Office stint.” According to the article, the MP in his previous job, at the Department of Tourism, received funds from government to ostensibly attend a training course related to Tourism. Part of the amount received was earmarked to pay for that training course. Seemingly, this payment did not take place, at least not at time of the training, or when it was first due.
It seems from the article that only when the MP was called out on his failure to pay did he rush to do so yesterday, more than a year past due. Are we experiencing a Rolando Brison “déjà vu” event? Remember the missing funds when Brison worked for Winair? In that case, the good gentleman misappropriated funds as well (US$30,000-plus). Winair was gracious enough not to press criminal charges, but instead allowed him to pay back the money that went missing, only to have him renege on the deal. That prompted me to write my first Letter to the Editor dated August 14, 2016, regarding the man’s financial integrity, or rather, the lack thereof. At which point, Mr. Brison made a second deal to pay back Winair.
Starting to sound familiar? I can’t say for certain why he did what he did, but given his modus operandi, I am speculating that it has to do with politics. In the Winair case, he ultimately needed to clear the slate in order to run for political office, and in this case, he holds a political office and wants to maintain his soap box. I might add that, thanks to transparency, at least the monies got paid back to the rightful owners in both cases, albeit with some delay. If there is a moral to this story, it is that there is truth to the saying “A leopard does not change his spots.”
Michael J. Ferrier
