Opposition says conflicting explanations have 'deepened public suspicion' about FID head appointment

The parliamentary opposition has charged that it is now “unmistakeably clear” that the appointment of chartered accountant Dennis Chung to lead the Financial Investigations Division (FID) was “carefully engineered to accommodate a hand-picked individual”.

The claim by Senator Peter Bunting, Opposition spokesperson on national security, comes amid conflicting explanations from the Government about why the criteria for law enforcement experience was dropped from the requirement for the post of chief technical director of the FID.

The Sunday Gleaner reported that the Government had denied two requests to disclose the reason a criterion for law enforcement experience was dropped from a second recruitment exercise to select the head of the FID.

The Attorney General’s Chambers, the principal legal adviser to the Government, also refused to disclose minutes, memos, or other records from any internal discussions about the change in the requirements.

Responding to questions and an Access to Information (ATI) request submitted by The Gleaner, Solicitor General Marlene Aldred said “other official documents that were identified as relating to the request are exempt” under two sections of the ATI law that deal with personal information.

On Tuesday, Information Minister Senator Dana Morris Dixon told journalists that there is no documentation explaining why the law enforcement requirement was dropped. She said the change resulted from conversations within the interview panel.

Minister of Finance and the Public Service Fayval Williams, in a third explanation provided in a public statement on Wednesday, said the Public Service Commission (PSC) “availed itself of the flexibility allowed as the original JD [job description] gave the leeway to have equivalent qualification”.

The statement was withdrawn a few hours later without an explanation.

A statement released by Bunting on Thursday accused the Government of engaging in “an elaborate cover-up to conceal the irregularities in the process”.

“Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. These conflicting explanations speak volumes,” he said.

Bunting, a former minister of national security, said the abrupt retraction of the press statement by the finance ministry has only deepened public suspicion and raised more questions about “this secretive process”.

He said the PSC must immediately “come clean” and reveal all details of the recruitment process for the FID top job, including the identities of the members of the interview panel, on whose authority and by what process the law enforcement qualification was eliminated and how many qualified candidates responded to each of the advertisements.

Bunting said the issue is further compounded by the fact that changes to job descriptions in the public sector must undergo a re-evaluation exercise which can take months to complete.

“That is the standard for all public sector posts as we have seen in the past with the National Land Agency and other agencies, the breach of this practice in the instant case raises serious concerns,” he said.

He renewed the Opposition’s call for Chung to resign from the FID so that the public can be assured that the institution remains free from undue political interference and retains the full capacity and independence to investigate high-level financial crimes, regardless of who may be implicated.

- Livern Barrett

Follow The Gleaner on X and Instagram @JamaicaGleaner and on Facebook @GleanerJamaica. Send us a message on WhatsApp at 1-876-499-0169 or email us at onlinefeedback@gleanerjm.com or editors@gleanerjm.com.