WILLEMSTAD - The Central Bank of Curaçao and Sint Maarten (CBCS) has filed a complaint with the Public Prosecution Service (OM) in connection with a reasonable suspicion of forged documents that have been submitted in the process that Curaçao is taking with the Caribbean Petroleum Refinery (CPR) to find the new operator for the refinery.
As far as the Curacao Chronicle has been able to ascertain, this does not concern a report in connection with falsified financial documents of CPR's financial partner at that time, which had already been discovered and established by the government company Refineria di Kòrsou (RdK).
This complaint most likely relates to documents provided to the Central Bank. This suggests that this is probably not what was submitted at an earlier stage by the Bar Trading Japan/Holding Marinocampo, but by CPR's new – as yet unknown to the public – equity partner or by CPR itself. This information has not (yet) been officially confirmed.
OM has confirmed this morning that the Central Bank did file the complaint. Forensic investigation, both locally and in the Netherlands, would have shown that there are apparently forgeries here.
The first forgeries were revealed just before the turn of the year, which was admitted that same day in a press release from RdK, adding that CPR itself had no involvement in this. This was later emphasized by RdK interim director Patrick Newton in parliament. He talked about 'non-authentic pieces'.
In the case of the Central Bank, the complaint was made at the end of last week. The most interesting thing about this complaint, however, is that it concerns one or more documents that have been submitted to the monetary authority and supervisor. That means a new case of falsification, incidentally after things did not go smoothly with CPR's first equity partner – Risa SA from Brazil.
The issue is politically and socially sensitive. The Pisas cabinet consisting of the parties MFK and PNP has repeatedly 'promised' that the refinery, which was leased until the end of 2019 by the Venezuelan state oil company PdVSA, would reopen and that the employees could get their jobs back.