The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

AUDITOR General Terrance Bastian said the government’s decision to challenge his department’s report into Urban Renewal 2.0 and its Small Homes Repair initiative with an independent review was surprising and unprecedented.

“Never has that happened that I know about,” he said, responding to questions from The Tribune. “So I’m waiting really to see that report and what it will say, because the audit says what happened and how it was conducted. So we will wait and see what it says.”

Mr Bastian also said it was “sad” that his report, which he said was done like all other audits, had become a political football.

“They made it so political, that was really sad,” he told The Tribune on Friday. “It was only done like any other report, we make findings and recommendations to go forward. People were complaining about why did (I) do this, but this is our job irrespective of who it is. We send all the reports that we do to the House Speaker to be tabled but in a summarised form at the end of the year in our annual report.”

“We now intend to send all the reports to the Speaker to be tabled, to avoid the confusion, as soon as we complete it. We will still do our annual report but this thing has created too much unnecessary undertones.”

He added: “People will always be upset and say what they want. If we sent out a report next week people will choose how to interpret it, but we don’t look at (political party) colours and we take our job very seriously.”

Prime Minister Perry Christie tabled the auditor general’s report during the morning session of the House of Assembly last Wednesday. However, an independent report commissioned by the Ministry of Works was not released despite an earlier pledge by Deputy Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis, who is also Minister of Works and Urban development.

In his planned contribution to the 2015/2016 budget debate – released to the media before the debate was abruptly brought to an end last month – Mr Davis said the second report was commissioned as a result of “areas of discrepancy” in Mr Bastian’s report. Mr Davis added that the new report was conducted by a consultancy firm with expertise in the field of civil, structural, environmental engineering; project management and quantity surveying.

In April, Mr Bastian’s report was leaked to the press and sparked months of heated debate over the management of Urban Renewal and possible abuse of the programme.

The Public Accounts Committee, headed by opposition MP for St Anne’s Hubert Chipman, was using the document as part of its probe into Urban Renewal.

After the document was leaked, Urban Renewal Co-Chairs Algernon Allen and Cynthia “Mother” Pratt, along with several Cabinet ministers, criticised the report and questioned its accuracy.

Neither of the co-chairs appeared for a scheduled hearing before the PAC. They said they would not speak to the committee if the report, which they said was illegal, was in the scope of questioning.

They said because the report had not been tabled in the House of Assembly, the process was a breach of parliamentary procedure.

Meanwhile, Mr Bastian explained that the decision to send his department’s 2015/2016 audit schedule to House Speaker Dr Kendal Major last week was a bid to improve transparency and good governance following the intense political controversy surrounding the Urban Renewal audit.

Mr Bastian stressed that Mr Christie’s decision to table the report in the House of Assembly during the same session was unrelated, adding that Mr Christie was given the go-ahead to release the report from Financial Secretary John Rolle.

“Two things happened that morning (last Wednesday),” Mr Bastian told The Tribune on Friday, “the report was tabled and this letter was read. They are separate and apart. The report was tabled because the prime minister got a letter from (Financial Secretary) John Rolle telling him that he can table it, so he tabled it. It had nothing to do with the letter.

“The letter I sent was to improve what I call transparency and good governance. We usually do a scheduling but we never send it to the Speaker; that was to allow the public to know that we do have a schedule. We may not stick to it but this is what we do.”

Last week, Mr Chipman said the PAC now intends to speak with the Urban Renewal co-chairs in early August.