PHILIPSBURG:---On March 11, 2015 an article was published by attorney Jairo Bloem entitled "SMHDF dumps Lynch for financial mismanagement". From December 12th, 2014 I have remained silent pending a so called forensic audit of alleged allegations. However, since attorney Jairo Bloem decided to go public prior to a court hearing, many persons have been contacting me and my siblings asking the questions: why I did not pick up on these so called irregularities within the foundation, how could I leave such happen under my watch, or asking if I had a role to play in this affair? Because of these questions from the public, I decided to break my silence to clear the air just a bit as the reasoning for all this fiasco is more personal than anything else.
Disclaimer: It has never been my intentions to throw anyone under the bus. I was of the belief to leave the past be the past and look towards the future. However once people begin to question my professionalism, integrity and name, one can only imagine that I must defend myself from all false accusations and if this means that some persons will be exposed, then so be it. In life, one should be vigilant of their actions because every action comes with consequences.
There are lot of issues and concerns that can be discussed but these will be for another forum when the time is right. For now the main focus will be on how attorney Bloem and the board conducted their affairs. I understand making money above all is everything to some people, but at least do it to also uplift your professionalism, instead of making law and order come across as being a mockery of justice; at least that is how I perceive it to be at this stage.
Besides Mr. Lynch and I,another colleague received a letter on August 12th, 2014 signed solely by attorney Jairo Bloem with subject matter of suspension pending an SOAB investigation. It is either that Mr.Bloem have trouble in the English language or maybe he had an off day, I cannot be certain, but not only was the letter filled with mistakes but all three of us received a letter with the same content as if the director, myself, and my colleague formed part of general management ("bestuur"). As far as I am aware I have a labor agreement with the foundation which the director signed off on. If I was appointed by a board, I wish they would have told me so and not left me in the dark all this time. A wise attorney would have written either three separate letters or two with different wording.
Artikel 7 of the articles of incorporation of the SMHDF states: "De stichting kent de volgende organen: a. het bestuur; b. de raad van commissarissen". Artikel 8 point 1 states: "Het bestuur bestaat uit één of meer personen. Het aantal leden wordt door de raad van commissarissen vastgesteld. Indien het bestuur uit een person bestaat, heeft deze de title van algemeen directeur. Indien het bestuur uit meer dan een person bestaat, heeft één hunner de titel van algemeen directeur en hebben de overige leden (of: heft het andere lid) de titel van directeur. De algemeen directeur wordt door de raad van commissarissen als zodanig in functie benoemd". Artikel 3, the first and second sentence states: "De raad van commissarissen benoemt, schorst en ontslaat de bestuursleden. Een besluit tot benoeming, schorsing of ontslag van een lid van het bestuur kan alleen worden genomen met algemene stemmen in een vergadering waarin alle leden van de raad van comissarissen aanwezig zijn".
Considering the articles of incorporation and what transpired on December 12th, 2014, attorney Bloem acted as though he was both the board and a public prosecutor with a warrant to suspend as the letter received from him was only signed by him while he demanded the keys to the building, office, and other access doors and we had to leave the premises. Even the locks of the main office was changed because I normally arrive early to open up and this day my keys could not open the locks and there were three security guards minding the building that morning when I arrived, which I thought to be out of the ordinary. All of this drama was concocted by the board instead of doing what should have been done, which was to call a meeting with management to discuss matters before taking such extreme measures as though we are criminals. The reasoning that led to the motive to suspend was stated in the letter as follows (verbatim): "Recent extensive meetings conducted between the Supervisory Board and employees of SMDFH revealed that there are serious suspicions of fraud, embezzlement, violation of human resource procedures, forgery of documents and deliberate mismanagement of funds and assets of SMDFH, also through and thus by SMHFF. These preliminary findings are consistent with data shown to and researched by the Supervisory Board." First of all the abbreviation used by Bloem for the housing foundation is incorrect. Secondly, two senior seasoned board members had resigned leaving two newly appointed board members on the board and they took it upon themselves to bypass the director to talk and conduct meetings directly with employees and used this as a bases, without having any discussion with the director, to act in the manner they did. Signed minutes of such meetings would also be interesting to see. Furthermore, I understood that Bloem is a criminal lawyer. So I guess he was somehow hallucinating to believe he is authorized to do the work as the public prosecutor without having to carry out the proper procedures as would a prosecutor. So I must congratulate Bloem as he has now joined the ranks of the "Super" board of SMHDF who does things above the law and against corporate governance.. At the time of Bloem serving his letter, the board was not present. To date, I have yet to see a resolution from the board in regards to the suspension of Mr. Lynch, much less myself and my colleague. Signed minutes of the meeting(s) where a decision was made to conduct the affairs in the manner that they did would also be interesting to see. I understood that there was no resolution at that time as there were only two members on the board after the additional two senior seasoned members had previously resigned and from the two new remaining members, one had to travel for medical treatment. It appears that Bloem advised the remaining board member to appoint someone to the board in a hurry as when you check the chamber of commerce information, a young person with the initials J.P, who conveniently works in a similar capacity in the same Ministry in Government as the board member who had to travel due to medical reasons, was put on the board the same day of the suspension. Even if they signed a resolution after the fact (by back dating), JP could not have had sufficient time to read the many documents to form an adequate opinion to sign off on a resolution with far reaching consequences. If he did sign then he is a fool and it would be questionable if sensitive documents were given to him to read prior to becoming an official board member which would also be a breach of confidentiality. I have many more questions, facts, and documents in my possession to address but as I stated, I won't discuss such in this forum, as I do my utmost to be professional.
Clearly corporate governance was violated as the board acted contrary to the articles of incorporation. Bloem now gives the impression that a lawyer can show up by any company and tell who ever to hand over keys and serve a letter of suspension all on his own and that would be considered lawful. If that is how the law works than we have some serious issues in this country to address besides the many others on the plate already. Furthermore, the prior chairman had convinced the board to engage the services of HBN law for a retainer fee. The agreement officially expires the end of March 2015 so it behoves me why Bloem was chosen to represent the board to incur additional legal expenses.
In the suspension letter of attorney Bloem he states the following: "Please be informed that SMHDF will maintain you informed with regard to the progress of the to be conducted investigation and, as soon as is possible, the moment whereon the suspension will be terminated. The findings of the investigation will be discussed with you. You will moreover be granted the opportunity to provide your feedback thereon and, if necessary, give reason and account." Well at least he got the abbreviation correct in this statement. Noteworthy is that March 12th, 2015 makes it three (3) months since my colleague and I have been suspended with pay. However we are still awaiting the opportunity to be heard. But in the mean time the director was fired based on an internal investigation which no clarity until this date was sought by my person, who functioned in the capacity of Finance Manager, Additionally, the investigation was also not conducted by any professional third party accounting firm. The board alluded to accusations that the then minister of VROMI stopped SOAB from conducting the investigation. Later we were told by the former minister in a recent meeting with parliament, of which the board was invited but refused to attend, that he did not stop SOAB from conducting any forensic audit. Who is telling fables it is not entirely clear. However, at the time of the suspension, BDO accounting firm was still busy wrapping up the 2012 audit. BDO was also the one that conducted the operational audit on SMHDF which was ordered by the then Minister of VROMI of which their report of findings and recommendations was never discussed more less ratified with the prior installed board, even after numerous requests by Mr. Lynch to have this done. BDO therefore could have conducted the internal financial investigation which would have been independent and unbiased considering that many of the accusations does not reconcile to the financial data I have in my possession up until a certain date. In addition, KPMG was assisting me with the clean up and revamping of the administration project and I gave KPMG accessibility to the accounting system where we spent many hours cleaning up the administration within the 2012 financial year so that BDO could finalize the 2012 audit. Because KPMG played a vital active role with assisting me with the cleanup project, they could have also been asked to conduct an independent investigation. The prior chairman had also engaged KPMG to do a follow-up quick-scan, where like BDO's operational audit, a report was prepared with findings and recommendations which to date was never discussed with the board despite numerous requests to do so by Mr. Lynch. Yet Bloem stated that the interim management, the same persons who the director had plans to terminate the labor agreement with as part of his HR restructuring plan since 2011 as they are part of the long standing non performing employees, conducted the internal investigation with a newly appointed financial supervisor hired in December of 2013 and the former supervisor who abandon the organization in 2012 by going on vacation to Holland and never returning, but was later rehired in December 2013 by Mr. Lynch, despite me not being in agreement, as she had not only abandon the organization when it needed her most but she is also a contributor of why the administration was in a mess in the first place. In other words the internal investigation is bias as these persons do not poses the competence to conduct a forensic audit. The two interim managers that were appointed by the board have been in the organization for more than ten years with one being the manager of technical services and the other as manager of housing services. Based on the evidence and knowledge I have of the foundation, I can only conclude that the board, the two interim managers, and attorney Bloem acted out of personal or bias reasons but they were only part of a bigger plot from higher powers.