‘I am clueless’ - Ex-CEO doesn’t know how signature ended up on documents after he left UHWI

Former chief executive officer of the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) Kevin Allen declared emphatically yesterday that he could not have signed a C-84 Customs form to allow for the hospital to apply its tax-exempt status to benefit two private companies in 2023 and 2024.

“I don’t know anything about that transaction whatsoever, so I am clueless where that is concerned,” Allen told members of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

Allen made it clear that he had already resigned from the hospital in 2022, noting that he could not account for the tax waivers after he left the institution.

The former CEO told committee members that he signed blank documents for emergency procurement purposes, but those were only applicable for internal administrative functions.

Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis, whose performance audit at the UWHI flagged serious procurement breaches and the improper use of the hospital’s tax-exempt status to benefit private entities, said on Tuesday that Allen appeared to have been in the dark in relation to his signature on a C-84 form dated November 25, 2023.

“In that case, I don’t know how my signature would reach on that document. I would not have signed such a document upon my departure,” Allen insisted.

PAC Chairman Julian Robinson said, “Given that you have said you did not sign that document, it raises other questions about how your signature, if it was your signature, or signature appearing to be one like yours, came to be on those documents.”

Allen was CEO at the UHWI from 2016 to 2022.

The board of management of the UHWI had called in the police fraud squad to conduct an investigation into questionable activities at the hospital.