The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

A FORENSIC audit initiated by the Minnis administration found there were $1,119,231 in inappropriate payments made in connection with a $10m loan the National Insurance Board made to the Ministry of Housing under the Christie administration.

The loan was meant to fund a national housing construction programme.

The inappropriate payments include $417,249 to contractors for unperformed work, $118,025 in duplicate payments to contractors, $300,693 in unauthorised mobilisation pre-payments to contractors and $283,264 in fund administrator fraud.

Minister of Public Services with responsibility for NIB, Brensil Rolle, tabled the audit in the House of Assembly yesterday.

The accounting firm, BDO, was engaged by the Minnis administration in November 2018 to perform the audit and the audit is dated January 2020.

Englerston MP Glenys Hanna Martin criticised the timing of the audit’s release yesterday, noting it comes on the heels of revelations that a Ministry of Finance internal audit made findings that led to the resignation of Seabreeze MP Lanisha Rolle as Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture.

She said: “If your entire political platform has been founded upon some notion that you are accountable and you are transparent and you believe in integrity in high office and all these things that they express all over the place, but you had an audit report that is a matter of important public interest but you decided you would sit on it based on the date of that report, January 20, 2020, without bringing it to the public’s attention and would seek today of all days in the midst of allegations that there is an audit that is current, that is relevant and that is germane to this administration, that you would instead seek to, in my view, deflect by going back to a report in 2013, it’s disingenuous and really the motives are suspect and really undermines any claim that they represent any of these high ideals that they championed during the campaign.”

She added: “It is also a blatant effort in my view to manipulate the public and the electorate and it’s not fair, it’s really disrespectful. If the government thought it was relevant and relates to public funds, then why would you sit on it for a year? Are you seeking an appropriate moment to make it politically sexy? I have a problem with this, it’s most disingenuous.”

The audit notes that a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between NIB and the Ministry of Housing in December 2013 as $10.8m was advanced for the housing project.

BDO has ultimately concluded that the Ministry of Environment and Housing “ignored its fiduciary and contractual responsibilities in administering the programme” and “incurred contractual obligations that exceeded the approved programme budget by $2,753,045.”

“Status reports that are the responsibility of the fund administrator were not provided on a timely basis and did not include pertinent information regarding the use of the programme budget,” BDO said.

“The construction contracts were not competitively bid and were unilaterally assigned to preferred contractors.

“Covenants of the Memorandum of Understanding which should have governed the conduct of the loan were not implemented or followed.”

Auditors said there was “a significant lack of internal controls and a material weakness in the change order approval and review process.

“There is little or no documentation supporting MOEH’s (Ministry of Environment and Housing) evaluation for change orders.

“Contract document control is inadequate, and the files are incomplete (eg contracts, payment applications and attachments are often missing, change order requests and documents evidencing the MOEH’s analysis of the contractor’s costs and entitlement are almost always missing).

“The MOEH has no written policies and procedures for contract procurement, contract management and contract administration.

“There is a lack of segregation of duties between employees involved with the procurement, management, and contract administration processes.”