The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune News Editor

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

OPPOSITION leader Michael Pintard has accused the Davis administration of operating a National Investment Fund account outside the structure required by law after Central Bank governor John Rolle confirmed that the Fund’s board has never formally convened.

Mr Pintard said the Central Bank correspondence raises fundamental questions over who authorised the opening of an account bearing the National Investment Fund’s name, who authorised deposits and withdrawals, and how hundreds of millions of dollars could have moved through it without a functioning board.

Mr Rolle, according to documents shared by the FNM told Mr Pintard on September 10 that although his appointment to the NIF’s Board of Governors took effect from June 30, 2025, the board had not been formally convened in respect of any matter.

In an earlier August 18 letter, Mr Rolle said the Central Bank maintained an account in the name of the National Investment Fund and that transactions began in July 2025. However, he said details of those transactions would have to come from the Ministry of Finance. He also said there had otherwise been no interaction between the NIF and the Central Bank.

Mr Pintard seized on those disclosures, declaring that there was no lawfully operating National Investment Fund and accusing the government of using what he described as a Ministry of Finance-controlled account instead.

“This is not just mismanagement,” Mr Pintard said. “This is grand fraud with public money.”

He argued that because the board never met, it could not have authorised banking arrangements, payments, transfers or investments on behalf of the Fund.

Mr Pintard’s interpretation of the Central Bank correspondence aside, Mr Rolle’s letters themselves do not describe the account as unlawful or say that money was improperly spent.

The dispute deepens a months-long controversy over the National Investment Fund and hundreds of millions of dollars in government borrowing.

Government fiscal reports showed the NIF held $265.3m at the end of December 2025 but just $200,000 by the end of March, leaving unanswered questions over where approximately $265.1m went.

Prime Minister Philip Davis previously said the money had been allocated towards airport works, including projects at New Bight, Arthur’s Town and Governor’s Harbour.

The controversy widened after Finance Minister Michael Halkitis disclosed during the 2026/27 Budget process that some $700m in excess borrowing receipts had also been transferred to the NIF rather than used for deficit financing.

Mr Pintard has repeatedly challenged the legal authority for those transfers, arguing that parliamentary approval to borrow money did not automatically authorise the government to move the proceeds from the Consolidated Fund into the NIF.

Mr Halkitis has rejected that position and maintained that Parliament had already authorised the framework.

The Central Bank letters now give the Opposition its clearest evidence yet that, despite money moving through an account bearing the NIF’s name, its governing board had not formally conducted business.

Mr Rolle said his instrument of appointment to the board was dated August 7, 2025, with effect from June 30 of that year.

But more than a year later, he said, the board still had not formally convened.

The timing is significant because the Central Bank separately confirmed that transactions on the account began in July 2025 — after Mr Rolle’s appointment took effect but before his formal instrument of appointment was dated.

Mr Pintard had first written Mr Halkitis on August 6 demanding answers about the apparent depletion of the $265.3m balance and asking who authorised the withdrawals, under what legal authority and for what purposes.

His letter also sought information on whether a Board of Governors and Investment Committee had been established, whether a custody bank had been appointed, whether investment and policy mandates had been issued and whether the Fund’s statutory reporting requirements had been met.

Mr Pintard said yesterday the latest Central Bank disclosures confirmed his concern that the formal governance machinery contemplated by the National Investment Funds Act had not been operating.

“The Central Bank indicates the Government has apparently opened an account at the Central Bank under the Name ‘National Investment Fund’,” he said. “Labelling an account with a name is not the same as a legally established NIF account.”

He accused the Davis administration of misleading Parliament and the public over transfers into and payments from the Fund and said Finance Ministry reports describing money as having been transferred to or paid out by the NIF were fraudulent.

The National Investment Funds Act was passed in 2022 and established a governance structure that includes a Board of Governors.

Mr Pintard said the unanswered issue is now who exercised that authority if the board itself never met.

“If the NIF Board never met to transact any matter,” he said, “then who legally authorized” the opening of the account, deposits into it and withdrawals from it?

He called on Prime Minister Philip Davis and Mr Halkitis to address the issue when Parliament returns on Wednesday and to account for every dollar spent through the arrangement.