$81 million and counting
Taxpayers foot mounting salary bill for 7 officials sent home, those acting in their absence
Published:Sunday | April 28, 2024 | 7:20 AMJovan Johnson - Senior Staff Reporter
Taxpayers are bearing the weight of an $81-million and rising salary bill for seven suspended public officials as a result of drawn-out investigations and administrative limbo within government agencies.
The $81 million represents the total pre-tax basic salaries of the officials, whose cases grabbed national attention over the last 29 months.
When accounting for benefits and their temporary replacements, the costs soar, shedding light on the financial repercussions of prolonged suspensions.
The Jamaica Civil Service Association (JCSA), which said it is aware of eight of its members being suspended from work, argued that added to that cost is the emotional and psychological impact persons whose fates hang in the balance face.
The union’s head, Techa Clarke-Griffiths, and St Patrice Ennis, who leads the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions, insist that the regulations need to change to put a time limit for investigations or reinstatement.
The seven cases examined by The Sunday Gleaner involve persons who have been off the job from six months to more than two years.
They include Dr Grace McLean, the chief education officer in the education ministry; and three from HEART NSTA/Trust, Jamaica’s skills training agency – Novelette Denton Prince, senior director of corporate services and former acting managing director; Sonia Ingleton, senior manager, human resource management; and Oneke Dixon, manager, human resources.
Two other instances relate to Shawn Martin, field inspector and deputy head of planning at the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation; and assistant building surveyor Calvet Sutherland.
The seventh case involves National Water Commission (NWC) President Mark Barnett.
Persons have been appointed to act in at least five of the roles, pending the outcome of the cases.
The salary for a person in an acting role typically comprises their substantive pay plus the difference between that pay and the lowest point on the pay scale for the person in whose stead they are acting.
GRACE MCLEAN
Grace McLean, who was acting permanent secretary in the education ministry, was first sent on leave in October 2021 and interdicted in January 2022. Her substantive post is chief education officer.
She was suspended after an auditor general report recommended surcharge proceedings against her for her part in the reported “loss” of $124 million allocated to the Joint Committee on Tertiary Education. She has denied the allegations.
In September 2023, Financial Secretary Darlene Morrison advised McLean that the surcharge notice was withdrawn because three years had passed and the notice was not legally enforceable. Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke blamed the education ministry for failing to respond to requests for information for the collapse of the proceedings.
However, McLean is still not back at work.
Questions submitted by The Sunday Gleaner to the ministry last week seeking an update on her status have not been answered.
An official was appointed to act in her role last year.
McLean’s attorney, Peter Champagnie, KC, said he has not received an update.
“We have not gotten any update as yet,” he said when asked about the matter last week.
Information obtained by The Sunday Gleaner shows that McLean has been paid at least $16 million in basic salary between October 31, 2021 and March 2024. The information suggests that her salary may have been adjusted downwards, a likely implication of being interdicted.
NOVELETTE DENTON PRINCE, SONIA INGLETON AND ONEKE DIXON
The HEART NSTA/Trust trio of Novelette Denton Prince, Sonia Ingleton and Oneke Dixon were suspended in February 2023 on full pay, for alleged compensation “irregularities”.
Last October, HEART’s Managing Director Dr Taneisha Ingleton told a parliamentary committee that the agency’s disciplinary policy stipulates a nine-month period for matters to be resolved.
That investigation has been affected by a series of delays, including the amendment of charges and late sharing of documentation, among other things.
The Sunday Gleaner obtained preliminary sums, which, up to October 2023, put the cost of the investigation at $7.5 million. The cost for the disciplinary panel is reportedly projected at over $4 million.
Although HEART has not answered questions seeking an update on the progress of the matter, The Sunday Gleaner understands that hearings first set for November 2023 had still not taken place.
New dates for hearings have been set for June 14 and July 23 of this year.
The three senior officials have been paid more than $36 million in basic pay up to March.
“We’re left to die and to go crazy,” one of the officials said last year. “I think part of the process is to break us down. To force us into resigning. But they will have to think again.”
The same official said last week that they “will not give up”.
SHAWN MARTIN AND CALVET SUTHERLAND
The Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation has indicated that Shawn Martin and Calvet Sutherland are also not back at work.
The Local Government Services Commission sent them on leave with full pay on December 21, 2021, to facilitate investigations into building and planning approvals given by the KSAMC.
They are scheduled to appear before the commission in hearings on charges brought against them “soon”, an official disclosed recently.
The process has reportedly impacted the pace at which information requested of the KSAMC is shared.
Martin has been paid approximately $6.1 million and Sutherland about $10 million for the period December 2021 to March 2024.
MARK BARNETT
The most recent case involves NWC President Dr Mark Barnett, who was sent on administrative leave last October after an Integrity Commission report accused him and his wife, Annette Francis-Barnett, of breaching the law in constructing their apartment complex in St Andrew.
Earlier this month, minister in charge of water, Senator Matthew Samuda, said the NWC’s board will make a statement on the matter “soon”.
“I would expect the board to comment on the matter soon, as they’re going through their assessment and reviewing their legal options because it is a matter that does have legal options in front of it,” he said, declining to say whether negotiations for a separation were under way.
Barnett has been paid at least $13 million up to March.
‘WHEELS OF JUSTICE TURN TOO SLOW’
The lengthy investigations with no clear finality in sight is another manifestation of the challenges with access to justice in Jamaica, argued Dr Christian Stokes, development economist and social commentator.
“The wheels of justice in the country generally just turn too slow,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.
“We do have a tendency to want to punish ahead of any decisions or verdicts being rendered. It is the small things that make certain societies civilised, and this is one of the small things that I think we need to rectify.”
Stokes further argued that the process becomes “costly” when an entity has to fill positions with acting appointments or suffer from the absence of a person with a key skill set.
“If a wrong has been done, the society and the companies ought to be comfortable with understanding that they need to go in another direction and that comes at a price, but let us get there; let us get to that position. Let us not be stuck in never-never land where, again, in the process of trying to come to justice, we’re actually administering punishment,” Stokes said.
A senior finance ministry official, who was not authorised to speak on the matter, said the Government has to accept that the delays are “hugely problematic”, but said “the public should know that sometimes the lawyers for the employees delay the matters with all kinds of requests”.
INTERDICTED PERSONS FACE ‘EXTREME HARDSHIP’
Most interdictions range from at least six months up to as far as 12 years, according to the JCSA’s Clarke-Griffiths, whose association represents over 30,000 state employees.
“Those persons are not able to work. They’re not productive and they’re not even able to get additional employment so they suffer losses in terms of salaries. Some of them lost their homes; families are devastated; in terms of children, some dropping out of school. Extreme hardship,” the union leader said.
HEART told its suspended officials that they cannot leave the island without permission from management, shall not contact any HEART employee without authorisation, and must not discuss their case, among other restrictions.
“Some of them (interdicted workers) are intended to be punished. So, there’s no urgency on the part of the organisation to expedite the process. In other cases, there’s a lack of resources, meaning personnel, to do the investigation,” Clarke-Griffiths said.
According to the union boss, the “onus is not on the employee to prove innocence, it’s on the employer to prove guilt” and the public agencies have options of reassigning persons to different areas and have them “put into production while the investigation takes place”.
“But what happens, they send them off. And you’re paying two salaries. You’re paying quarter or half pay; you’re paying somebody else to work for that person.”
The situation highlights the “urgent need” for a review of the public service regulations, the JCSA head said.
Clarke-Griffiths is supported by St Patrice Ennis, president of the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions, a body representing over 40,000 government workers.
Section 32 of the 1961 Public Service Regulations allows for the interdiction of public officers where disciplinary or criminal proceedings “have been or about to be instituted” and it is in the Public Service Commission’s opinion that “the public interest requires that that officer should cease to perform the functions of his office”.
The regulations say where a person is proved innocent, that official is entitled to receive whatever amount of salary was deducted when they were suspended.
The section, however, does not stipulate a period within which the investigation must be completed.
Ennis told The Sunday Gleaner that that needs to change and a period of four to six weeks mandated for settling issues within an entity. Clarke-Griffiths said it should be no more than six months.
“The whole concept of interdiction as we now practice breaches principles of natural justice. … It is a punitive measure because there is nothing in there to say ‘this must not go beyond a particular time’. And we all know the adage that justice delayed is justice denied,” Ennis said, noting that unions have been lobbying the Government to change the law.
The issue will be raised more aggressively in the next stage of the compensation review for public sector workers, Ennis noted.
SUSPENDED/SENT ON LEAVE
• Dr Grace McLean: Paid $16 million (likely affected by a cut) from October 2021 to March 2024
• Mark Barnett: Paid $13 million from October 2023 to March 2024
• Shawn Martin: Paid $6.1 million from December 2021 to March 2024
• Calvet Sutherland: Paid $10 million from December 2021 to March 2024
• Novelette Denton Prince, Sonia Ingleton, Oneke Dixon: Paid a total of $36 million from February 2023 to March 2024
NB: Persons have been appointed to act in at least five of the roles, pending the outcome of the cases. The salary for a person in an acting role typically comprises their substantive pay plus the difference between that pay and the lowest point on the pay scale for the person in whose stead they are acting.