A major business with operations in Abaco has been unable to pay over $650,000 in duty owed to the government since January, as the company's checks have not been cashed, Guardian Business understands.
A source close to the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that he believes the apparent failure to cash the checks may be connected to the "missing" $500,000 from the Customs Department in Marsh Harbour, Abaco which was reported in June to have been under investigation by police.
"The company has over $650,000 on fixed deposit waiting for them to come for it. The checks have not been cashed. I can only imagine that someone was destroying the checks in order to cover their tracks as they were stealing the cash."
If this was occurring with other business peoples' duty payments to the government, the source conjectured that up to $5 million in revenue owed to the government may not have been collected since January. At least one other major business in Abaco yesterday told Guardian Business that they had in fact been able to make payment on duty owed.
In June The Tribune reported that police were actively investigating the disappearance of $650,000 from the Department of Customs office. At that time, MP for North Abaco, Renardo Curry, was the only person to speak on the matter, saying it would be seen through to its conclusion.
"I'm sure the government will get to the bottom of it and find out what has transpired in the accusation," he said.
MP Curry concluded: "You can rest assured that if there is some mishandling of funds, the government will follow the law of the land."
Providing an update on the police investigation into the June "disappearance", head of the Central Detective Unit, Paul Rolle, said yesterday: "We didn't recover any money but the investigation is still ongoing. We have nobody in custody but we've spoken to a number of people out there. We're not yet ready to make any arrests."
The business source yesterday said that it is incumbent upon the government to address the issue of the missing funds.
"This is our money. The Comptroller of Customs (Charles Turner) or the Minister of State for Finance (Michael Halkitis) should tell us what's going on. It would appear the cash has been stolen and someone was destroying the checks in order to make things appear to balance."
Efforts to reach Turner, Halkitis and Financial Secretary John Rolle yesterday were unsuccessful, as messages left were not returned up to press time.

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