Tyrone Reid, Staff Reporter
CHARLES
THE JAMAICA Labour Party (JLP) is demanding that Prime Minister P.J. Patterson fires the entire board of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), saying the current directors can no longer be trusted to monitor activities at the agency.
The party also accused Minister of Local Government, Community Development and Sports, Portia Simpson Miller, of dereliction of duty, describing her efforts to pull the authority out of its current quagmire as "woefully inadequate."
"The action of Mrs. Simpson Miller was inadequate in the extreme," said Pearnel Charles, Opposition spokesman on Local Government. "The internal auditors at her ministry should have been on top of this issue a long time ago. I have gone above her because we don't believe that what she is doing is sufficient."
He added: "The Prime Minister should dismiss the chairman and all members of the board of the NSWMA and appoint an interim board with all new members, in order to put an immediate stop to the rot taking place at the authority."
Mr. Charles remarks came amid reports of widespread corruption at the NSWMA and a statement from the Auditor-General that the agency has, for the past two years, failed to turn over financial statements to his department.
ANOTHER DEVELOPMENT
In another development to the ongoing saga, The Gleaner has learnt that an emergency meeting called by the board of directors of the NSWMA on Tuesday failed to resolve in the words of one insider "anything of significance."
The source noted that the meeting was chaired by the agency's executive chairman Alston Stewart, adding that Mrs. Simpson Miller was a notable absentee. "It's astonishing, to say the least, that one of the persons at the centre of this controversy was the chairman of the meeting," the insider noted.
"Even more amazing is the decision by the Minister to send the Permanent Secretary to represent her. Clearly she is not of the view that there is a crisis at hand here."
Mr. Charles said he is also requesting that the Auditor General do a "detailed forensic audit of the NSWMA and assign specially appointed forensic auditors to support the Auditor General in this effort."
Additionally, he is insisting that the Prime Minister should encourage the Auditor General to utilise the fraud squad, if necessary.
Mr. Charles also made it clear that the issue will not become another nine day wonder, saying his party has information that will corroborate that the allegations of corruption could be proven.
"We are doing our own investigations. We want them to know that we know a lot of things, but we are not going to put them out there until we conclude our investigations," he said.
He said the JLP was fully aware that the Solid Waste Authority's financial "books are in shambles".
