The charitable status of Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda (CURB) has been deferred by the Charity Commissioners, Minister of Home Affairs Michael Fahy has confirmed, apparently sparking speculation among members of the public that the deferral was politically motivated.

According to Mr Fahy, the Charity Commissioners met on July 10 to consider CURB’s application, eventually deciding to defer “pending answers to several queries pertaining to their application.” The queries, said Lynne Winfield, the CURB vice president, were regarding two of the charity’s by-laws. Ms Winfield said CURB had attempted to answer the Commissioners’ questions, but was asked for further clarification. She added that CURB had followed up on the second request for clarity as of yesterday.

Ms Winfield said it would be “unfair” to speculate why their charitable status application was deferred — beyond the reasons given by the Commissioners — but did express her dismay at the timing of the deferral, which came one day before their annual fundraising tag day.

“Disappointingly, organising a tag day is a huge project. The timing was a bit of a disaster for us,” she said, noting that the charity, which does not receive government subsidy, relies heavily on the tag day for funds. She said news of the deferral had gotten out after CURB was forced to inform volunteers that they would not be going forward with their tag day, in turn stimulating theories behind the motivation of the deferral on local radio talk shows.

With the deadline for re-registration now gone, Ms Winfield said CURB finds itself in “limbo” until its charitable status is restored.

“We had thought because we had already supplied them with information that they would say everything is fine. As far as CURB is concerned we’ve replied to the Commissioners’ questions,” she said.

As for whether the deferral had anything to do with CURB’s recent statements in the media, Ms Winfield said: “We don’t want to make any conjectures at this stage.”

Mr Fahy said the Commissioners required “grater clarity on CURB’s banking signatories”, while moving to quash suggestions that the deferral was politically motivated by clarifying that the Ministry of Home Affairs is not responsible for re-registration applications and is only ever involved when a decision made by the Commissioners is appealed.

“The dissolution clause, which governs how a charity’s assets are to be dealt with on its dissolution, needed to be amended to ensure that assets are distributed to a registered charity in good standing. This has been the Commissioners’ policy since February 2012, and which is reflected in the language of the Charities Act 2014,” said Mr Fahy.

In a statement released to local media last night, a Home Affairs spokesman said the Charity Commissioners view CURB’s work as “charitable and worthy of registration” and once their queries are satisfied, the application will be approved with “all due expedition.”