The entrenched culture of secrecy, silence, non-response and pussy-footing that has been practiced by the School Board at Beersheba Primary School since September 2011 and up to the present time, is an impediment to James Richards Educational Trust Fund for which the School by a legal document – Deed Of Appointment and Termination James Richards Educational Trust Fund – is appointed by Bermuda Trust Company Limited (Former Trustee) as New Trustee for the Fund.
It is indeed sad and unfortunate that the Ministry of Education which along with Beersheba Primary School and Beersheba Old Students Association (BOSA) were required to acquiesce to there (3) criteria stipulated by Bermuda Trust Company Limited (Former Trustee) for James Richards Education Trust Fund, has adapted the culture that the School Board has practiced over the years. Consequently, the long paper trail and waste of human and natural resources by Beersheba Old Students Association (BOSA) is the result of several attempts made by the Association to obtain responses from the School Board in its local governance and the Ministry in its oversight and monitoring role to resolve outstanding contentious issues have become an exercise in futility.
One of these issues, has to do with two signatories that is specified in the criteria that had to be satisfied before the balance of money in James Richards Educational Trust Fund was transferred into an account that was to be opened at The Bank of Scotia Jamaica Limited (Black River Branch). Unknown to Beersheba Old Students Association (BOSA) – whose representative along with the Principal Beersheba Primary School were the two signatories by which the account was opened at the Bank – the name of the representative for the Association was removed from the account. Several attempts made by the Association to the School Board and the Ministry of Education to ascertain who are the present signatories to the account have gone unheeded and met with non-response.
Another one of these issues has to do with the defiance of the School Board to carry out legitimate directive that the Permanent Secretary (Chief Accounting Officer) in the Ministry of Education gave to the School Board to pay all outstanding money that is owed to Beersheba Old Students Association (BOSA), a student whom Bermuda Trust Company Limited determined that she is a qualified beneficiary of James Richards Educational Trust Fund and a member of the Association who used his personal funds that enabled the student who was denied financial assistance for which she is a qualified beneficiary to attend and graduate from High School in Upper Six Form. This student from the impoverished peasant farming hilly terrain of Flint Valley, New Market, Saint Elizabeth is currently enrolled in one of Jamaica’s Leading University.
Still another one of these issues has to do with non-response by the Ministry of Education regarding the outcome of the audit of James Richards Educational Trust Fund that was done by Internal Auditors from the Ministry at the request of Beersheba Old Students Association (BOSA).
In the pursuance of probity, transparency and accountability, so as to ensure that the amount of USD 79,941.49 (JMD 6,856,029.84 that Bermuda Trust Company Limited (Former Trustee) for James Richards Educational Trust Fund transferred to Beersheba Primary School (New Trustee) on November 3, 2011 is not used as a dole of “patty Pan” by which undeserving persons become beneficiaries of the Fund instead of students at Beersheba Primary School who satisfy academic requirement specified by James Richards (1872-1965) Trustor and Beersheba Primary School Alumnus; Beersheba Old Students Association (BOSA) continues to insist that the Managing Committee appointed by the School Board to manage and make disbursements from the Fund, supported by the oversight from the Ministry of Education is held accountable to all Stakeholders in Beersheba Primary School Community so as to ensure that the desire of the Trustor is carried out by the New Trustee that must respect checks and balances that are indelibly entrenched in the legal documents by which the balance in the Fund was transferred to it.
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