Hotel manager testifies Bahado-Singh never showed up
FORMER CHAIRMAN of the stateowned oil refinery, Dr Perceval Bahado-Singh, did not show up for a five-day reservation made in his name at a hotel in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2018, a witness has testified.
Bhakta Das, t hen general manager of the Grange Tower Bridge Hotel in London, said the former Petrojam chairman was booked to check in on March 2 and depart on March 6 in 2018.
The reservation was made on February 28 that year, Das testified on Tuesday.
He was giving evidence in the Corporate Area Criminal Court via video link from the UK during the trial of Bahado-Singh and former Petrojam General Manager Floyd Grindley on fraud-related charges.
Bahado-Singh is accused of submitting claims totalling US$73,620 between December 2016 and May 2018 for overseas travels he did not make.
Grindley, it’s alleged, aided and abetted the process used to make the fraudulent claims.
“Do you have any record of him (Bahado-Singh) checking in at your hotel?” lead prosecuting attorney Caroline Hay asked Das.
“No, he did not check in,” the witness responded.
Das, who now operates a restaurant in the UK, said this was revealed through an audit that was conducted after enquiries by the police.
“I went to the reservation team and asked them to print out the relevant documents from the system to assist,” he said.
However, Das acknowledged, during cross-examination, that he was unable to say who made the reservation for Bahado-Singh.
“I don’t have that document on this particular audit,” he said in response to Bahado-Singh’s attorney Bert Samuels.
The witness disclosed that the Grange Tower Bridge Hotel, at the time, received reservations through its global distribution system (GDS), direct booking by clients, and travel agents.
He said the hotel employed an internal IT technician“to make sure everything was working properly” with the GDS.
Das conceded, too, that the hotel has“nothing to do with the external systems” that feed into its GDS.
The trial continues today.