Former government consultant Claude Skelton-Cline has been arrested and charged in relation to an ongoing criminal investigation into government contracts awarded from 2008 to 2010, police said in a statement issued tonight.
The 58-year-old, of Ballast Bay, was charged with two counts of obtaining property by deception, four counts of false accounting, and one count of “proceeds of crime,” according to the statement.
“This comes following a complex investigation led by the [Commission of Inquiry] that spanned over 18 months,” police said in the statement. “As the matter is now in sub judice, the [police force] will make no further comment.”
Among other criminal investigations, the COI recommended probing the Neighbourhood Partnership Project that Mr. Skelton-Cline headed in 2009 and 2010.
The programme — which was supposed to help schoolchildren — was harshly criticised by the COI and the auditor general, who alleged that it spent hundreds of thousands of dollars with limited transparency and accountability.
During hearings in 2021, the COI grilled Mr. Skelton-Cline about his involvement in the NPP, but he pushed back, defending the project and suggesting that he was being victimised.
Attempts to reach Mr. Skelton-Cline were not immediately successful.