Published On:Tuesday, March 09, 2010

By ALISON LOWE

Tribune Staff Reporter

alowe@tribunemedia.net

IN THE wake of accusations from the PLP that he presided over "abuse and cronyism" at the Department of Environmental Health to the tune of $18 million, the Minister of the Environment yesterday revealed that he has found evidence that "some public officers" did engage in corrupt practices within his Ministry.

Environment Minister Earl Deveaux said that a "full and exhaustive investigation" into who and what funds may have been abused is now underway and if evidence is found to support the allegations, civil servants will find themselves in court.

His comments came after he and PLP MP for St Thomas More Frank Smith became embroiled in a parliamentary dispute last week after Mr Smith accused the Free National Movement government of awarding public contracts to party "cronies" without tender.

In the morning session of the mid-year budget debate, Mr Smith accused the Ministry of the Environment of spending more than $18 million on clean-up programmes "with no clearly-stated guidelines, no consistent practice of newspaper ads inviting tenders or bids."

Mr Smith later withdrew this assertion after Mr Deveaux pointed out that the figures the PLP MP quoted in his speech amounted to less than $2 million, a fraction of the $18 million he was alleging was spent.

Mr Deveaux also pointed out that documents Mr Smith tabled only showed a combined $10,600 payment to two maintenance companies.

Several members from the government's side called on Mr Smith to provide proof to back up his claims or withdraw his statements while opposition members rallied behind their colleague.

Mr Deveaux added on that day he did not dispute that abuse may have taken place, but was asking that the PLP MP fully corroborate his allegation.

Yesterday the Minister said that he takes "very seriously this issue of abuse and the implication that a public official, in this case a politician, was involved in it."

It was "kind of heartwretching to be accused directly or indirectly of tiefing from people making $210 a week," he said. "That's difficult to swallow."

While noting that Mr Smith's assertion that the contracts awarded were not subject to a public bidding process, he suggested this was acceptable as the programme had the "dual goal" of "providing employment and cleaning up New Providence" as part of the government's "stimulus programme."

Meanwhile, he noted that further documents that Mr Smith wished to table in alleged support of his accusations of abuse of funds were not allowed yet by the Speaker of the House "because (Smith) had the names and the figures but there was no way of corroborating the figures with the names."

However, Mr Deveaux admitted that he has subsequently determined that there was some abuse of the programme by public officers and further inquiries are going on.

"Some public officers, I have found, did engage in abuse and so we have had the Treasury in the department taking pictures of every person who was authorised to get a cheque so we can match an individual with a payment and we have the auditor general going forensically through all of the payments to ensure where abuse took place or didn't.

"I have also provided the ministry of finance with a complete report which I requested for them to match the names and the payments that I have against what the Treasury has so we can have a full and exhaustive investigation and where we can find any instance that we can prove we will take them (to court)," he stated.