No misappropriation flagged in audit, says Tufton
Published:Friday | November 11, 2022 | 7:19 AMRuddy Mathison/Gleaner Writer
Dr Christopher Tufton has engaged in damage control regarding $400 million in COVID-19 expenditure regulation breaches, arguing that the pandemic presented grave difficulties for the health ministry in its management of the disease.
Tufton said that many decisions were taken on the “spur of the moment because lives were on the line”, but he acknowledged that the findings were a learning process.
“In the case of the hotels and the accommodation, we can recall the context of persons on ships waiting to be taken off, so there were a lot of issues,” Tufton said during a Gleaner interview Wednesday.
That reference relates to the ban on inbound passengers at airports and seaports during the first months of the outbreak, which sparked national debate as Jamaican cruise ship workers were initially barred entry. Hundreds of ship workers and other nationals were eventually quarantined at hotels.
COVID-19, which was first detected here in March 2020, has killed more than 3,300 people and infected 160,000.
Tufton also insisted that Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis’ report did not cite the Ministry of Health and Wellness for misappropriation of funds.
The minister said Permanent Secretary Dunstan Bryan, the ministry’s chief accounting officer, and his team would respond to the observations when they appear before the Julian Robinson-chaired Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament.
“As I understand it, what the auditor general spoke to is the issue of whether or not a process was followed in the tangible way how contracts are written, but let’s wait on the PAC. Let’s allow the team to respond. That’s the appropriate place for responses,” Tufton said on the sidelines of an Adopt-a-Clinic ceremony at the Dr Kenneth Baugh Health Centre in Point Hill Wednesday.
“... I read the report and I have had a meeting with the team. I have also heard and seen the responses.”
The report, tabled in Parliament Tuesday, revealed hundreds of millions of dollars in expenditure without formal contracts with 14 of 15 hotels and suppliers for infrastructural work.
The audit cited a lack of transparency in the spend of $293 million for quarantine facilities and a lack of formal contracts for infrastructural works amounting to $124 million. It was also not clear how $174 million transferred to the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development was used.
Monroe Ellis and her team concluded that the health and wellness ministry lacked transparency in its payments, which totalled $293 million for quarantine facilities; was unable to show formal contracts for infrastructural works amounting to $124 million; could not confirm how $174 million transferred to the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, a state agency, and a non-governmental organisation was used; weaknesses in the controls over COVID-19 fixed assets acquisition; and regulatory breach in the preparation and maintenance of payment vouchers.
The Dr Kenneth Baugh Health Centre is the 40th facility to be adopted under the Ministry of Health and Wellness’ Adopt-a-Clinic Programme.
The Type Two facility, which serves an estimated 250 patients monthly, is located in Tufton’s St Catherine West Central constituency.