Punish liars! - Former permanent secretary calls for sanctions on public officials who mislead parliamentary committees
Published:Tuesday | July 28, 2020 | 12:28 AM
Jamaican laws should be upgraded to provide tough sanctions for public officials who mislead or lie to parliamentary committees, Dean-Roy Bernard, the former permanent secretary in the education ministry, has said.
He said that penalties should be applied similarly to what currently obtains with congressional committees in the United States.
In a submission to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) which The Gleaner has seen, the former permanent secretary charged that some public officers who showed up have deliberately concealed information and have misled the committee.
Bernard, who is now engaged in a legal battle with the Government over his transfer from the Ministry of Education to the Ministry of Finance, said that he hopes the findings of the auditor general are adequately scrutinised to ensure that truth is unveiled and the responsible officers are identified.
Bernard is expected to appear before the PAC today after being summoned by the committee, last week, to tell his side of the story in the wake of the Caribbean Maritime University (CMU) scandal.
A special audit conducted by the Pamela Monroe Ellis-led Auditor General’s Department uncovered a trail of questionable spending, flagrant human-resource breaches, and other violations of government procurement rules at the university. A report was tabled in Parliament in January.
In his submission, Bernard bemoaned that the PAC may not have, as part of its remit, the power to summon public officers, especially after resignation, and those that are not public officials.
He said that neither the Financial Administration and Audit Act, the Public Service Regulations, nor the Financial Management Regulations have adequate offence provisions to criminalise breaches occurring under them or even to create disciplinary proceedings for their breach.
He suggested that after deliberations of the PAC and the findings of an auditor general’s report, a body should be established with the remit to enforce compliance with recovery proceedings, convene disciplinary hearings, force surcharge, and recommend the convening of civil litigation to seek damages for the public of Jamaica where losses have been identified.
In what is expected to be his first salvo, Bernard has indicated in his submission that the then chief education officer, Dr Grace McLean, had direct oversight of the CMU during the “relatively short” period it was under his purview.
Bernard claimed that much of what occurred at the CMU was never reported to him.
McLean is now the acting permanent secretary in the education ministry.
In his hard-hitting submission, Bernard painted a grim picture of flagrant breaches at the CMU as he sought to connect the dots in relation to the alleged role of key players who were not named in the auditor general’s report.
Bernard sought to set the record straight in relation to a matter that came up in an earlier PAC meeting. It was highlighted in the auditor general’s report that $2 million was paid for close-protection services to former minister Ruel Reid.
In an August 22, 2019, response, the education ministry said that “when no response was forthcoming from the JCF in relation to additional close-protection support for the former minister, a director was instructed by the permanent secretary to put a weekend team in place in order to support the minister and, as such, would not require him personally to be engaged. The ministry further indicated that these special arrangements could not take place unless approved by the permanent secretary”.
But Bernard, who was the then permanent secretary, said he found the ministry’s response, through McLean, to be obfuscating.
Bernard said, in his PAC submission, that at no time did he approve any engagement of a weekend team to provide close-protection services for Reid. The former permanent secretary said that he did not approve any funding to be paid by the CMU to cover those expenses for additional security for the former minister.
He said the former minister had an assigned close-protection officer and, therefore, additional officers to cover him would have had to be approved and dispatched by the JCF.