CDF protocols under review
Published:Wednesday | June 30, 2021 | 12:11 AM
Permanent secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), Audrey Sewell, has signalled that steps are being made to review the policies and procedures governing the Constituency Development Fund (CDF).
Sewell told members of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Tuesday that the OPM was in dialogue with the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service, which has responsibility for conducting the review.
“We have sent to Finance some recommendations. They have responded, and the process is ongoing,” Sewell said.
In a compliance audit report released in November 2020, the Auditor General’s Department (AuGD) stated that for the period 2015-2016 to 2019-2020, there were 21 beneficiaries who received a total of $2.4 million from the CDF to offset educational expenses at private schools.
Of that number, one family received financial assistance totalling $1,170,000. The father of the beneficiaries was an employee in the constituency office of a former member of parliament.
On Tuesday, the issue was highlighted during a meeting of the PAC.
Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis said it was important not to lose sight of the fact that the CDF was a welfare programme.
Pointing to her audit, which showed that someone related to a former MP received the lion’s share of the educational grant under the CDF, the auditor general indicated that the fund was not intended to provide benefits disproportionately to connected parties when compared with the sums granted to “ordinary” beneficiaries.
Chairman of the CDF Committee and member of parliament for St Andrew East Rural, Juliet Holness, said that the fund should be used to benefit constituents equitably.
“We, as members of parliament, have a duty, a responsibility, to appreciate that the monies that are allocated and the resources aren’t our money for us to decide how we want to spend it, and for us to give our friends or family members or our associates or the people that we like,” Holness said.
Meanwhile, the permanent secretary told the PAC that the CDF was implementing the recommendations of the auditor general coming out of the compliance audit.
The permanent secretary also reported that the CDF Committee has made significant strides in the monitoring of projects.