New House clerk: We did not know what to do with the reports

Newly minted Clerk to the Houses of Parliament Colleen Lowe has admitted that her predecessor was on vacation leave when the Financial Services Commission (FSC) audit report was returned by the Auditor General’s Department (AuGD) and when the second review – Tax Administration Jamaica report on leasing arrangements – also arrived at Gordon House on January 29.

Valrie Curtis, the former clerk, went on vacation leave on January 9, a day after she sent back the FSC audit report which was first dispatched to Parliament by the AuGD on December 28, but was recorded as being received by Parliament on January 2, 2024. She said her leave was duly approved by Speaker of the House Juliet Holness.

She told The Gleaner that it was never brought to her attention. Neither did the former clerk advise her secretary that she received instructions from the Speaker or that when these reports are sent to Parliament, they should be returned to the auditor general.

“When we received the reports, what was done is that her secretary would just have merely brought the cover letter to my attention for me to sign that we got those reports – we received them in the Parliament.

“Her secretary did not know what to do with the report and neither did I,” Lowe said, adding that “if she had informed her secretary, she would have prepared a cover letter, I can vouch for that, and her secretary would have said to me, ‘Ms Lowe, Ms Curtis informed me that once we receive these reports, they should be returned’, but we did not know what to do”.

WAITED FOR CURTIS

Lowe said she received the audit reports and waited for Curtis to return to office to take charge of the situation.

“So it is true that they were received while I was deputising but we did not receive any instructions,” she said.

Asked if anyone reached out to Curtis for instructions while she was on leave, Lowe said: “I am not sure if her secretary reached out to her by phone, and then the fact that she was on leave, but notwithstanding, she returned to office early February and did nothing about the reports.”

However, when Curtis was asked to respond to the claims by Lowe, she made it clear that both her secretary and Parliament’s legislative counsel, who drafted the ruling, were aware of the instructions to return the auditor general’s reports.

According to Curtis, she was not the only one who was present when the Speaker was formulating her ruling on the tabling of reports from the auditor general. She said the team also included the legal counsel and Lowe.

“The legal counsel knew and my secretary knew that they were to go back,” Curtis said.

She added that based on the Speaker’s ruling on how to handle reports on public bodies from the auditor general, her then deputy had an obligation to send back the reports during her absence.

Curtis also emphasised that her then secretary shared copies of reports from the auditor general with the Speaker’s secretary.

Moreover, Curtis said even though she was on vacation, she was just a phone call away and no one rang her phone to enquire about what should be done with reports they had received.

edmond.campbel@gleanerjm.com