I never owed Lynch money – Rishatha Nicholls

The dismissed secretary to Leader of the Opposition Arnhim Eustace says that her ex-boss can produce no new evidence to prove that she owed the late Elwardo Lynch.

Rishatha Nicholls told SEARCHLIGHT on Wednesday that any letter Eustace says he is in possession of, and would circulate to the public, was already presented to the Labour Department,{{more}} and was not enough to support his claim that she took Lynch’s money.

“He is giving the impression that he is a kind man and refused to present this letter and that is why I got my severance pay, but there is no new evidence. The letter was presented by Eustace and not by E G Lynch,” Nicholls claimed.

“He couldn’t influence them in the church to have respect, so how does he intend to convince the nation?”

Nicholls disclosed that she did in fact reimburse money to Lynch, a former NDP mouthpiece, by paying one of his close friends on a regular basis.

She said that the payments were made, not because she had taken the cash, but because she decided to take the responsibility after some money went missing at the New Democratic Party headquarters.

“I never owed Lynch money, because I never used Lynch’s money.

“The problem arose when Eustace asked me to do something and a mistake was made.

“He told me to use Lynch’s money to pay a debt that Bert Francois owed to a young man in the New Democratic Party.

“And the rest of the money was left on a desk.

“He (Eustace) admitted that he was wrong to tell me to do that, and I took the responsibility and decided to pay back the money.

“It was about standard and principle, and to think anything else was bad mind,” she stated.

Nicholls worked as secretary to the Opposition leader for 12 years, before she was fired in March last year.

After a number of hearings with the Labour Department, Nicholls was awarded $16,199.99 in severance payment, which Eustace paid in April this year.

Eustace had given as reasons for her dismissal the fact that he no longer trusted her, that she failed to prepare the vote book, and that she used money intended for Lynch for her own purposes.

Last Saturday, at the funeral service for Lynch, who had served as a mouthpiece for the party for over 10 years, founder of the NDP and former Prime Minister Sir James Mitchell told the congregation that Lynch told him that Nicholls did not owe him any money.

Eustace, on his party’s New Times radio programme on Monday, in response, said he has evidence, which he would provide, that Nicholls indeed owed Lynch and had been repaying Lynch, with the last payment being made afer she was fired.

Nicholls on the other hand says that she does not believe there is anything new, neither does she believe any letter presented by Eustace was written by the late talk show host.

She said Lynch was her friend and she never had any issues with him throughout their relationship. Nicholls said it was not until after she was fired that the letter, purportedly written by Lynch, was produced to justify her dismissal.

“I had chosen to leave the matter alone, but he (Eustace) is in a frightened position right now.

“I don’t know if this attack is against me or E G, because E G was never involved. Eustace is the one who cooked it up and E G took it on.

“At the end of the day, Lynch is dead and I am out of a job.”