Gregory urges support for auditor general, Integrity Commission
Published:Thursday | April 18, 2024 | 12:06 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Senior clergyman Reverend Dr Howard Gregory is urging Christians to resist the temptation from elected officials to trample and smear the integrity of the Auditor General’s Department and the Integrity Commission.
Gregory said these institutions are important to hold our leaders accountable and were established through bipartisan agreements.
“In the pursuit of integrity and transparency of governance, we must therefore oppose any attempt by elected officials to tamper with the effective functioning of the Integrity Commission, [or to] limit access to its findings from public knowledge and discourse,” Gregory said. “[This is] Even as there is a disregard for the reports of the auditor general, both of which are institutions established in a time of more sober reflection to ensure accountability and transparency in governance.”
He told senior officers at the recent 153rd annual Synod of the Anglican Church in Jamaica and The Cayman Islands, held at the St James Parish Church, that corruption remains a major concern and that it is not being adequately addressed and the perpetrators continue to function with impunity.
Gregory noted that corruption has now found validation within our social and political culture with an apparent lack of the will to do anything transformative about the situation.
According to the senior clergyman, the nation is tired of hearing repeated reports from the auditor general of billions of dollars of public funds that have been spent and cannot be supported by the required documentation without corrective actions being applied.
“All that is forthcoming are feeble denials of lack of appropriate time for a response from the relevant agencies or individuals – suggestions that the auditor general does not understand the material which she has submitted,” Gregory lamented.
“And the feeble statements that regulations will be put in place to address the situation but we never hear about what those regulations are,” he added.
Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis reported that the Financial Services Commission (FSC) incurred a $163-million loss when Jamaica hosted the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) conference in 2017.
The agency also failed to recover $4.7 million in statutory obligations for a former executive director and paid US$28,000 to a consultant without an approved contract and terms of reference.
The auditor general’s findings are contained in a 22-page special audit report of the FSC’s human resource and administration practice and procurement transactions executed between March 2015 and September 2022. The audit was carried out in response to a slew of allegations against the state agency that supervises and regulates the securities, insurance and private pensions industries.