The trustees of the Hotel Pension Fund have misused the fund's assets with a questionable land purchase, Raymond Russell has claimed.

Mr. Russell, the head bell captain of the Sonesta Hotel, told The Royal Gazette that he is willing to go to court on behalf of the workers because he alleges over $200,000 of their pension money was wasted in the deal.

According to Mr. Russell, the fund purchased a lot of land on Brunswick Street, Hamilton for $555,223 in 1990, netting the previous owner a profit of $320,000, but sold it recently for just $200,000.

Copies of the fund's financial statements for the year ending December 1998 confirm that land was purchased in 1990 for $555,223 but the same statement records the value of the land at $150,000 in 1998.

The 1998 statements note that the fund had plans to develop the land but the project was "formally abandoned" in September of 1991. Developer and former Premier Sir John Swan confirmed that he had bought the land "two or three years ago" from the fund. But he would not say what he thought it was worth.

Mr. Russell believes something is wrong. "People with education are always taking advantage of those without it," he said.

"A blind person could recognise that it is not right. How could you pay $500,000 for something that 14 months ago was worth $200,000 ?" He said his efforts to get the fund's administrator, Mr. Calvin White, to look into the deal have fallen on deaf ears.

Mr. Russell has distributed a letter to selected hotel workers, accusing the fund's trustees of a cover up.

"It appears that the trustees of your pension have covered up a crime that was committed concerning your pension," he wrote.

"It appears that the administration purchased a piece of land for $320,000 higher than its value."

The fund's administrator Calvin White did not respond to our requests for comment.

Mr. Russell has worked in the hotel business all his life and has been a keen self-appointed watchdog of the Hotel Pension Fund, which in the early 1990s was reported to have about 3,400 participants.

In 1994 Mr. Russell succeeded in a two year campaign to get the fund to change a clause in its constitution which denied its members the right to collect their pensions if they were still working even though they had reached the retirement age.