THE AUDITOR-GENERAL, Mr. Adrian Strachan, has presented a most damning report on the operations of the Intech Fund to Parliament and it raises a whole new set of issues.
Since the report was tabled in Parliament, the 'spin doctors' have been suggesting that no evidence of corruption was unearthed by the Auditor-General and it is now time to move on to rebuild the information technology sector.
However, we are bothered by the question of motive the 'why' factor. Why would officials of the Government, including a Minister who is a lawyer by training, throw prudence to the wind and engage in the kind of recklessness in the expenditure of public funds that is outlined in the report of the Auditor-General?
The report indicates that the most basic of guidelines in the disbursement of loans were ignored as millions of dollars in taxpayers' money was paid out to companies with no follow up to ensure that the funds were used for the purposes intended. Among the allegations are that meetings of the Loan Approval Committee were called without allowing those who were to attend adequate time to review the loan proposals, and that the Minister of Technology attempted to railroad projects through the system.
In the case of NetServ, which received a loan of $180 million and collapsed six months later, triggering the investigation into the Intech Fund, several things went wrong. Documents which were signed by the company were not signed by the National Investment Bank of Jamaica, (NIBJ), on behalf of the Government, and vice-versa. Adverse credit reports on companies related to NetServ Jamaica were brushed aside and the Loan Policy Guidelines were ignored.
What emerges from the Auditor-General's report is that the systems that were in place were subverted because individuals either failed to do what they were supposed to, or performed their jobs in a sloppy manner.
The National Investment Bank of Jamaica has not covered itself with glory in the role that it played in this scandal, which prompts our concern that the management of the Intech loan fund is now to be transferred to this agency. And what of Minister Paulwell? We are not prepared to dismiss his bungling in this sorry affair as the excesses of youthful exuberance. The Minister had set himself the laudable target of creating 40,000 jobs in the information technology sector. If he had succeeded, he would have been lauded.
What has emerged is that he breached the guidelines for loan approvals and disregarded some of the most basic safeguards. He has failed miserably in what he set out to do and in the process has cost the country millions of dollars.
We reiterate our position that the principle of Ministerial responsibility and accountability demands that he submits his resignation to the Prime Minister.
