Authorities in St. Vincent and the Grenadines have summoned British-born businessman Dave Ames of Harlequin to appear in court to hear tax evasion and theft charges, a law enforcement source has told iWitness News.
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the government is accusing Ames, who is also a naturalised Vincentian, of not paying taxes from his interests in the country.
Ames owns Harlequin, a company that owns the beleaguered Buccament Bay Resort, where workers have repeatedly complained about late or incomplete payment of wages, the latest of which complaints came this week.
The Crown is also alleging that Ames has not paid into the national coffers the income taxes his company deducted from the wages of workers at Buccament Bay Resort.
Our source said that Ames owes the government almost EC$2 million in such monies.
The source said that a lawyer acting for Ames had lobbied law enforcement authorities not to proceed against Ames by way of an arrest warrant in light of legal proceedings his company is involved in.
He is being summoned to court in a week when the High Court of England & Wales is meeting in SVG to hear evidence in Harlequin’s US$70 million claim for professional negligence against its former accountants and auditors Wilkins Kennedy — a firm.
The case is being heard in the High Court of England & Wales, with one week of the claim taking place in SVG.
Ames and his wife, Carol were among the persons in the audience at the High Court building in Kingstown on Tuesday, when Vincentian lawyer, Samuel E. Commissiong gave intriguing evidence about his role as lawyer and company secretary for both Buccament Bay Resort and Harlequin.
Ames stayed in court until the proceedings ended around 4 p.m.
He did not come back to court on Wednesday when Commissiong concluded his testimony and the court heard evidence from two other witnesses.
The Government will never allow Ames to be prosecuted because of the very nice house built for one of the leading Ministers. I have the photo’s during build, I can I am now told have a written statement laying out the free house process.
There is also great car loads of free party food and booze once a month for many years, stopped now.
There are also the allegations of bribery to contend with which still have not been satisfactorily investigated.
From what I have seen. I am sure what you are writing is true. How can we exist like this? Why do we the people accept this as normal? Do any of us have the courage to expose these facts in public, or is it because such information can make our life-expectancy become greatly reduced? I see that people of a certain status can do anything they wish and they always get a lesser punishment if not a reward.
Bring back the BBC boot out the DPP before he gets his hands on the case.
Poor little SVG — our country can only attract foreign people like this to invest in our pitiful mainland tourist industry.
Right! We have a system that encourages corruption. Very high taxes and duties mean nothing can work unless they are reduced. Therefore we have a system of concessions where the super rich can get tax breaks others cannot. That means certain people get a great advantage over others, guaranteeing the others WILL fail. The problem is that since this system attracts the corrupt, they too fail based on their bad business model and/or conduct.
Why did the government wait until now, after a British court inquiry on Mr. Ames in another legal matter, to come forward and make these charges? The employees at Buccament Bay Resort have been crying out for years of not being paid and the current government just sit back and did nothing. Now that a foreign jurisdiction come St. Vincent on a court manner relating to this individual, you want to now jump on the bandwagon and file tax evasion charges. This way you pretending like you doing something so you can fool the people. You have known this for years but refused to charge this individual for tax evasion. But the small little local man you ready to shake down if they miss only a month of paying taxes. If this case was never brought to SVG against this guy we would have never hear anything about Mr. Ames not paying the taxes he owed this country. This is ridiculous and shows how this government rolls!
If Ames is convicted on all charges, he would never pay which leaves the government with the option of seizing the resort, which it would never do, if only because this would scare off any other developer of the Ames variety, the only kind our tourism-challenged mainland would ever attract.
If Mr Ames was never indicted by the outside court…. he would have never been charged for tax evasion. Yep… that’s how low our current government is….. while the small business are slapped…. and poor workers at the resort are crying every month….SAD!!!