A former Officer-in Charge of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), now Financial Intelligence Agency (FIA), Bobby Q. Harris has responded to a publication in this paper under the captioned: “Massive Fraud Uncovered At Financial Intelligence Unit.”
On Wednesday, March 20, 2024, this paper published an investigative story about questionable financial transactions at FIA between 2018 and 2021 indicating that during those transactions Bobby Q. Harris was Officer-in-Charge after Alex Cuffy resigned and Finance Officer during the tenure of Cuffy.
However, in his response, Harris clarified that he was nowhere around the FIU leadership when those transactions took place and he has no idea.
Harris said after Alex Cuffy resigned as FIU Director General, he was recommended and subsequently received a letter from the Executive Mansion to serve as Officer-in-Charge in October 2019, adding “I served for two months in that post.”
“I served the Financial Intelligence Agency for 10 years and all the GAC reports did not include my name for misappropriation or fraud. I even won employee of the year award based on my record,” Harris told this paper on Tuesday, April 9, 2024 when he walked into our offices.
Although Mr. Harris claimed not to be anywhere around when those financial transactions took place, but in a letter written on March 22, 2024 to this paper requesting a retraction of the March 20, 2024 story, he maintained that those transactions were legitimate.
In his letter, this is what Harris had to say “Furthermore, it is imperative to state that those transactions published are legitimate institutions transactions and fall well within the institution’s appropriation for the period under review and cannot be considered as fraud.”
What appears to be a contradiction of claims that he had no idea of those transactions, Harris pointed out in his letter with these words “We understand your quest to draw parallel between the unappropriated 6.2 million USD transferred into the FIA’s account and immediately withdrawn surreptitiously from the FIA account between September 2023 to December 2023, which is now a subject of investigation due to the suspicious nature of the transferred and withdrawn but same do not holds parallel as all transaction you listed were legitimate institutional transaction and extra funding in keeping with the budget and PFM laws.”
He further indicated in his letter that the General Auditing Commission (GAC) conducted an audit of the institution and highlighted no financial impropriety regarding the transactions during the periods mentioned in the publication.
Investigation continues.
