OPPOSITION SPOKESMAN on tourism, Edmund Bartlett, wants the Minister of Industry and Tourism to conduct a forensic audit into the operations at the Jamaica Tourist Board's (JTB) offices.
Mr. Bartlett tabled a motion in the House yesterday asking that the Minister, Aloun N'dombet Assamba, be required to conduct a forensic audit of the JTB's offices, locally and overseas, with specific reference to the Operation Grow project, and that the full report of that audit be tabled in the House immediately thereafter.
In the meantime, Mr. Bartlett says that he wants the report of the full internal audit done by the JTB's chief internal auditor, Collin Greenland, to be tabled in the House.
According to him, he is making the request in the light of revelations that: the report showed that US$13 million was spent on a major programme, Operation Grow, designed to restore Jamaica's image after the September 11 tragedy in the United States in 2001 and that some US$7 million of expenditure cannot be accounted for to date; and further, that repeated calls for the former Minister (Portia Simpson Miller) to make public the report, which had caused great public concern, went unheeded."
Minister Assamba admitted, last month, that she had received the final report from the internal auditor, addressing allegations against the JTB's New York office. However, she said that she was awaiting legal advice on how to proceed with it.
Speculation has been that the report paints a damning picture of corruption, including the use of shell companies to milk the JTB out of huge sums of money by way of a billing scheme and over an extended period of time.
