Just one day after saying the Children's Life Fund did not receive the promised monthly payments from Government ministers, chief executive officer Geoffrey Lewis resigned from the charity.

Though his resignation was kept quiet for the past two weeks, chairman Varun Maharaj yesterday admitted that Lewis had parted ways with the CLF the day after the Express wrote that no ministerial contributions were made to the charity over the past two years.

In a telephone interview yesterday, Maharaj said the CLF would soon begin "networking" for a new CEO.

"He was not fired, he chose to resign," Maharaj said.

Despite that statement, Maharaj confirmed that he, as chairman, began "looking into" Lewis's interview with the Express and was expected to meet with him to discuss it on that Tuesday.

"But on the Monday, Lewis came to meet me and resigned effective immediately," he said.

Maharaj also confirmed that Lewis had resigned just as he (Maharaj) was starting investigations into the details Lewis revealed in the Express article. 

Late last month, the Sunday Express spoke with Lewis, who had then confirmed the details of a Cabinet Minute May 3, 2012 entitled "Contributions from Salaries of the Prime Minister, Ministers of Government and Parliamentary Secretaries towards the Children's Life Fund".

In that Minute, Cabinet took note of the June 4, 2010 agreement that "with effect from June 1, 2010, the salary of the Prime Minister be reduced by ten per cent and the salaries of Ministers be reduced by five per cent with the sums by which such salaries have been reduced being placed in the Children's Life Fund".

Lewis had then confirmed that, up to last month, no monthly ministerial salary contributions were made to the CLF charity in the past two years and that it was only within the last few months that the salary deductions started going toward the children's charity.

In that article, Lewis had then confirmed that no contributions had been made by the ministers for two years. He said then that the children's charity only began getting deposits from individual ministries "in the last few months".

"I cannot say for certain how many months, but it is only within this year," he said.

"We are only now getting cheques from ministers, but we are keeping a record so that they can file their own taxes and write-offs because I'm not sure if the internal accounting has been put in place," he said then.

On the date the story was published, September 30, Maharaj contacted the Express refuting the Lewis statement. Maharaj had then said that while the Ministers have been making monthly contributions, it remained in an inaccessible account under the Ministry of Finance.

Maharaj said all board level members knew about the inaccessible monthly deposits in the account under the Ministry of Finance.

"You must be able to trust the CEO on any type of organisation," Maharaj said.