‘Where are the police reports?’ - Thwaites weighs in on corruption scandals facing Government
Published:Friday | March 6, 2020 | 12:30 AMDanae Hyman/Staff Reporter
More than half of Jamaicans believe that the corruption scandals that surrounded the Ministry of Science, Energy and Technology were not adequately addressed by the Government, an RJRGLEANER-commissioned Don Anderson poll has found.
Fifty-two per cent of the 1,038 respondents said that the corruption scandals at the energy ministry were not addressed adequately, 25 per cent said they were, and 12 per cent disclosed that they did not know. Nine per cent said they were not sure.
Sunday Gleaner columnist Daniel Thwaites declared that to prove transparency, the Government should disclose to the public the investigative reports into the energy ministry.
“Until the official investigation report into the energy ministry that has been published and corrective action taken, I don’t see how anybody can say there has been any proper recourse,” said Thwaites, an attorney-at-law based in New York and former member of the People’s National Party-aligned Patriots movement.
“Simply firing a minister, which really amounts to putting him aside until you resurrect him after the next election, is not enough. I don’t think it will be fair to say nothing has happened, but I don’t believe enough has happened.”
In 2018, a flurry of scandals plagued the energy ministry, leading to the resignation of then portfolio minister Dr Andrew Wheatley, along with various heads of public bodies under his purview.
In May of that year, Opposition Spokesman on Science and Technology Julian Robinson called for the Integrity Commission and the auditor general to urgently examine the operations of the state-owned oil refinery, Petrojam, noting that the viability of the entity was threatened.
Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis later released a damning report on Petrojam, citing “explicit acts of nepotism” and deficiencies in human-resource recruitment and management practices.
Further, the Auditor General’s Department revealed that Floyd Grindley, former general manager of Petrojam, disregarded the Government’s procurement guidelines when he engaged a consultant, in two separate contracts totalling $31 million, “without the approval of the board.”
NESOL SCANDAL
Overlapping that scandal, in June 2018, an engineer at the government-owned company National Energy Solutions Limited (NESoL) and a mechanic faced corruption-related charges following a multiagency investigation that culminated with the seizure of more than $30 million in cash and four luxury vehicles.
The men were charged with money laundering, possession of criminal property, and breaches of the Corruption Prevention Act.
In July of said year, Robinson also called for a probe into the operations of the Universal Service Fund (USF) surrounding allegations of cronyism, nepotism, and maladministration.
“Where are the police reports into these things? It seemed like every agency was just engulfed in scandal and controversy. You had a massive amount of discrepancies across the agencies, multiple investigations supposedly taking place. The overall strategy, it appears, would to be leave it alone until the public forgets,” Thwaites said.
Attempts to contact Energy Minister Fayval Williams yesterday were unsuccessful as calls to her cell phone went unanswered.
Forty-four per cent of respondents in the Don Anderson poll also said they were dissatisfied with how the corruption scandals in the Ministry of Education and Caribbean Maritime University were handled.
The pollster found that 30 per cent were satisfied, while 15 per cent said they did not know, and 11 per cent were not sure.
Fifty-eight per cent of respondents said the Jamaica Labour Party was not more corrupt than any previous government.
Another 25 per cent said they, however, were more corrupt, and 10 per cent said they did not know. Eight per cent were unsure.
The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus three per cent.