HEART heads get hefty new salaries before approval
Published:Sunday | November 7, 2021 | 12:12 AMJovan Johnson - Senior Staff Reporter
Details have emerged that HEART/NSTA Trust paid out undisclosed millions in new salaries to senior executives before getting the required approvals.
However, the public agency that reports to Prime Minister Andrew Holness has denied a Sunday Gleaner access to information request for the new salary scales implemented after three other training-related entities merged into its structure in 2018.
It is among the series of controversies surrounding the operations of the agency that is due this fiscal year to spend approximately $14 billion, most of which it collects through a tax on employers.
Just last Tuesday, Opposition lawmaker Julian Robinson tabled questions in the House of Representatives for Holness to answer in 21 days.
The prime minister is to provide details on the cost of a board retreat held last month at an expensive St Ann-based hotel.
The questions came amid simmering staff concerns that the cost of the meeting on the north coast may have been excessive.
HEART did not acknowledge questions sent by our news team on Thursday seeking confirmation on details of the retreat, including whether it had cost a reported $5 million.
The Sunday Gleaner has obtained an estimate of expenses, although it is not clear whether it represents the final costs involved in putting on the event attended by board members and senior managers.
A breakdown of that unconfirmed estimate showed $3.4 million for accommodation; $800,000 for a moderator; $664,000 for a strategic coach; and $240,000 to cover incidentals.
A justification for the moderator said the individual was a trained communicator and instructor with good time management, skill sets the agency said were needed for the efficient and effective execution of the activities for the retreat.
Some hotels give discounts ranging from five to 20 per cent for such events, depending on the size of the group. But it was also not clear whether HEART benefited from this.
The Edward Gabbidon-chaired board reportedly met following the tabling of Robinson’s questions, with deep interest among some members in how details of the agency’s affairs were reaching the public domain.
By the week ended, staff anxiety heightened over the instability in leadership at the agency after a communiqué advised that Novelette Denton-Prince and Kenesha Campbell would continue to act as managing director and deputy managing director, respectively, until a recruitment process for those positions is completed.
Denton-Prince started acting in the position in April and got extensions up to August before the latest announcement. She took over from Dr Janet Dyer, whose contract was not renewed by the board in February.
“Everything about HEART these days is just very shabby. I know they had a plan, but ever since The Gleaner started revealing things, it’s like it’s all gone upside down,” an official said of the Office of the Prime Minister.
Following the merger of the National Youth Service, the Jamaican Foundation for Lifelong Learning and the Apprenticeship Board into HEART, a new structure has emerged to reflect the widened scope and increased responsibilities of officials.
It meant new salary scales and in some instances new positions at the agency.
However, persons were being paid at the new rates even before approvals were granted, documents have confirmed.
“Neither the board of directors nor the MoFPS (Ministry of Finance and the Public Service) signed off on the classifications before the partial implementation of the salary scale,” the agency admitted in a report submitted to the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee.
After the unauthorised payments, HEART submitted a justification to the finance ministry.
According to HEART, in a letter dated July 14, 2021, the ministry gave no objection in order to “prevent any negative impact on the staff at the Trust and in an effort to maintain industrial harmony”.
Those payments were seen as having taken effect on April 1, 2020.
HEART did not reveal to lawmakers its justification that an official from Heroes Circle said “forced the finance ministry to do what it would not have preferred to do ... because HEART knew it needed to get permission”.
Further investigation suggests that HEART may have been sparing in the details it provided to Parliament on how it went about making the unauthorised salary payments under the new scale.
The Sunday Gleaner has seen documentation that reveal the payment of new salaries to senior managers and department heads only, months before their subordinates were granted increases or paid at their new levels.
A draft copy of a 14-page pay plan for the merged HEART/NSTA Trust shows basic salaries distributed across 15 levels, each with five levels of increments, in addition to associated allowances.
Level one is the lowest and has a minimum salary of $778,800 and maximum of $946,554.
Level 15 covers the managing director and opens with a minimum basic salary of $9.9 million and maximum of $11.7.
Concerns have lingered that workers of the National Council on Technical and Vocational Training and the Vocational Training Development Training Institute were not being paid under the new structure.
NCTVET has moved to the Ministry of Education that has struggled to explain why a new council to approve certifications has not been in place for months.
Salaries are, however, paid by HEART.
Although HEART appeared before Parliament’s Public Administration and Appropriations Committee on July 28, those issues were not addressed and have been pushed back to future meetings.
Two months before that, however, The Sunday Gleaner submitted an access to information request to HEART for a copy of the new salary scale and details about any unauthorised payments.
HEART responded in October, denying access to documents that would indicate how it has been dealing with taxpayers’ money.
That position appears to run counter to the view of the prime minister that such information should be made publicly available, as well as the stance of the finance ministry, which has long published the salary scales for the public service.
Earlier this year, Holness backed the publication of the contract for the commissioner of police after the Office of the Services Commissions denied a Gleaner request. The office later reversed its position as public pressure mounted.
The Gleaner has submitted an appeal that has so far not been acknowledged by HEART.
Over the summer, HEART was forced to abandon an illegal tax it was charging travelling officers for decades following a ruling by the finance ministry.
A return to mileage claims has been causing headache.
Its troubles started last year following the publication of an auditor general report that raised questions about its certification rates despite spending millions on training.
And just last month, the auditor general revealed that HEART transferred $75 million to a rogue state advisory body, Joint Committee for Tertiary Education, to fund a programme in the education ministry, without doing anything to account for how the monies were used.
That committee was headed by Cecil Cornwall, the president and founder of the Western Hospitality Institute (WHI) that was delinquent for years in paying over statutory taxes due to HEART.
Documents have also revealed that at the time HEART was doing business with the WHI during its period of delinquency.
Cornwall, who has controversially established an entity with the same name as the Government’s JCTE, also served on the HEART’s board (2015-2017).