Charity removed from FSC watchlist

The non-profit charity Hands Across Jamaica for Righteousness has been removed from the Financial Services Commission (FSC) watch list after three years, having satisfied the regulator that it was not, as suspected, operating an unapproved investment scheme.

However, the FSC said other companies owned and operated by Yvonne Coke, namely Write Vision, E. Partners Private Members Club, Outstretched Hands Limited and Vision Increase SA Corp, were still on the list of unregulated entities.

Coke was also principal of Hands Across Jamaica.

The FSC placed those companies on public watch on the grounds that they were neither licensed nor registered to solicit or take funds from members of the public with the promise to pay returns.

Hands across Jamaica, in a statement this week, said its removal from the watch list ended some three years of "a virtual shadow over the organisation", while contending that it was never involved in financial trading.

Corporate secretary at Hands Across Jamaica, Keith Ellis, told the Financial Gleaner that the organisation was negatively affected during the time it was on public watch "because there was no money coming in, nobody was willing to support us, and those who were giving decided to stop."

With the FSC's ruling, Ellis said, the organisation would now return to carrying out its core functions of seeking to change negative behaviour patterns especially among young people.

Hands Across Jamaica was conceptualised in 1994 and launched in 1995. It was designed to act as a vehicle of change, by instilling wholesome lifestyles and attitudes in Jamaicans in a bid to correct the spate of crime and violence, as well as the disintegration of moral values and attitudes in the society. It was relaunched by then Governor General Sir Howard Cooke in 2004.

The FSC, in emailed responses to queries by the Financial Gleaner, said the charity was placed on the public watch list three years ago "based on facts obtained through the FSC's investigation".

"The FSC wrote to both Hands Across Jamaica and its Executive Director Yvonne Coke, and gave them an opportunity to submit to the FSC any information indicating that they were not conducting securities business without a licence. After a protracted period, the FSC received a submission from Hands Across Jamaica," the regulator said.

Coke on watch list

Removal of the charity from the watch list was based on submission of evidence to the FSC that it had not solicited funds for or operated as an unregulated financial organisation (UFO). However, Coke remains on the public watch list, the FSC said.

There are currently 54 entities still on the FSC watch list.

"The reason they remain on the list is that the FSC's investigation has revealed that these entities/individuals are conducting securities business without being licensed to do so," the regulator said.

"The entities have been contacted by correspondence and given an opportunity to present evidence to the FSC, that they had not been operating as a UFO. Where no evidence was presented or the evidence presented is inadequate to establish that the entity had not conducted securities business without being licensed to do so, the FSC maintains the entity on the watch list."

mcpherse.thompson@gleanerjm.com