An official investigation has been launched into the alleged disappearance of files from the computer database of the Office of the Leader of the Opposition at the West Wing of the Parliament Buildings.
The files reportedly went missing sometime between former Prime Minister Owen Arthur’s return to the leadership of the Opposition Barbados Labour Party [BLP] and Mia Mottley’s ouster from that position last October. Arthur revealed then that on taking over at the office he had found the database virtually wiped clean.
Yesterday an informed source at the House of Assembly said an official letter of complaint from the Opposition Leader’s Office had already been submitted to Parliament and the matter was being probed. There was, however, one major snag.
“It will be difficult to determine what was on the database previously, to now make any definitive assessment of what is reportedly missing. How does one say what or if something was there in the first place? Information stored there rests with the Leader of the Opposition and his or her staff. Parliament does not provide that data,” the parliamentary source stated.
Yesterday former personal assistant to Mottley, Henderson Bovell, distanced himself from the disappearance of the data from the computer system and described it as “nonsense”.
Bovell said any files at the Opposition Leader’s office prior to Arthur taking over the reins of leadership of the BLP were either Mottley’s or his files and had nothing to do “with anybody else”. He said no hard drive had been removed from the Opposition Leader’s office.
Efforts to reach Mottley and Arthur were futile.
Full story in the SATURDAY SUN
