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Damaging our good reputation
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The findings raised serious questions of concern which brought to the fore issues of Jersey’s international reputation, justice and the role of various States bodies in finding satisfactory solutions.
Our investigation featured the stories of a number of people all of which were strikingly similar.
Two African businessmen and a UK-based charity providing aid to victims of Rwandan genocide paid Parisma in advance for shipments of clothes, shoes and other goods.
However, what they thought was to be the start of a mutually beneficial relationship with the Jersey firm run by Michelle Yuksel turned out to be the source of great pain and stress. They say either the goods were not delivered or the quality was so poor they had to be thrown away.
Earlier this week, we interviewed Dalton Walusimbi, a Ugandan businessman who paid Ms Yuksel £27,500 for used shoes. A year after he placed his order, he says he is still owed £15,400 in addition to the thousands he has spent trying to get his shoes.
The impact on him and his family has been devastating. They have lost their home and the children, who have been taken out of school because Mr Walusimbi can no longer afford the fees, are now living apart with friends and relatives. Mr Walusimbi has said that he wishes he had never come to Jersey.
As the JEP has revealed, the police announced in March that they had launched a fraud investigation into the activities of Parisma. The Economic Development department is also looking into the matter.
To date, however, no action has been taken. More must be done – and fast – to help those who have lost money.
Jersey has been a trading Island for centuries and its good name around the world has been built on the honouring of contracts made in good faith. Mr Walusimbi and others cannot afford to take these cases to court. That they are, to some extent, out of sight in distant parts of the world should not mean they are out of mind.
As a community we must act and resolve this deeply troubling situation and make sure it does not happen again. For her part, Ms Yuksel should be good to her word and repay what she owes before more misery is caused.
*Articles published in this newspaper and online on Monday 24 February and 8 March reported that Michelle Yuksel was the owner and director of Logistics2Go. The second-hand clothes exporter was one of two wholesalers founded by Ms Yuksel which had their licences to trade revoked by the Population Office in February ‘to protect Jersey’s reputation’ under the Control of Housing and Work (Jersey) Law. Both companies, Logistics2Go and Parisma, were the subject of a JEP investigation following allegations that people in the developing world had paid them thousands of pounds for consignments of second-hand clothes and shoes which, they claimed, either never arrived or were of such poor quality that they could not be sold. The articles stated that Ms Yuksel was the director of Logistics2Go at the time its licence was revoked. In fact, she had resigned as a director due to ill health in September 2013. The error is regretted.
This correction is being published at the request of the Press Complaints Commission. Ms Yuksel and her former business partner Rosemary McDonald made a catalogue of complaints to the commission about this newspaper’s public interest reporting of the trading practices of Parisma and Logistics2Go. All of those contentions were rejected save for their complaint about the factual error referred to above.
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