By Lynford Simpson, Staff ReporterDANVILLE WALKER, the tough-talking Director of Elections, yesterday earned the ire of the members of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) when he tried to explain the rationale behind the policy of the Electoral Advisory Committee (EAC) for members to travel first class.
It emerged at yesterday's sitting of the PAC that the EAC routinely upgrades economy class tickets of its travelling officers to first class and that the elections advisory body had never applied for per diem for its officers, either.
This is in breach of the Government's policy guidelines as it relates to air travel as only Cabinet ministers are allowed to travel business class. All other officers are required to travel economy class.
The policy guideline has been constantly breached by the EAC and yesterday PAC member, Mike Henry, demanded and got Auditor General Adrian Strachan to agree to probe the matter to determine whether a surcharge should be affixed to the $354,777 the EAC had incurred as a result of upgrading tickets to first class on six different occasions during 2001.
During the period under review, officers attached to the EAC travelled to six countries including South Africa, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua as part of observer missions.
Yesterday Mr. Walker was chastised for what PAC member Dr. Patrick Harris perceived as his defiance, when he sought to explain away the EAC's breach of policy as a way of maintaining its independence from Government.
Mr. Walker stated that the routine upgrading of tickets was a policy of the EAC, even before he went to the Electoral Office as Director of elections in 1997.
This prompted Dr. Harris to remark: "I do not detect where Mr. Walker is saying that this will not happen (in the future), or this is breach of policy, or this is taxpayers money. I detect a kind of defiance and, in his own words, formulating a law unto himself.".
He added that the principle that was being set was not healthy and suggested that the matter should be addressed expeditiously.
