By Denise Clarke, Staff Reporter
WESTERN BUREAU:
AS ALLEGATIONS of corruption continue to swirl around the St. James Parish Council, the Auditor-General has been asked by the Local Government Minister, Portia Simpson Miller, to probe the local authority's books.
The Minister sought the Auditor-General's intervention "with a view to auditing the accounts of the Council to substantiate or dismiss the allegations," said a release from the Ministry last night.
"The findings of this audit will be made public and the requisite action taken as recommended and deemed fit," the Ministry said, but gave no indication as to the time frame within which the probe would be done.
Mrs. Simpson Miller's move follows new allegations by Mayor Noel Donaldson, who has headed the council for five months, and comes in the wake of threats from staff that they were prepared to walk off the job next week if a press release in which the Mayor made fresh charges of improprieties was not publicly withdrawn.
INTERVENTION
The Jamaica Association of Local Government Officers (JALGO) wrote to the Mayor asking him to retract the release he sent to the media earlier this week, calling for the 'urgent intervention' of Prime Minister P.J. Patterson and Mrs. Simpson Miller into the operations of the Council.
In the strongly-worded release, Mayor Donaldson asked the ministers to "free the St. James Parish Council from the stronghold of the administrative mafia that is bleeding the Council dry as a result of corrupt activities."
General Secretary of JALGO, Helen Davis-Whyte, said council employees were concerned about the Mayor's accusations, and were preparing to take industrial action by the next council meeting on December 11, if the statement was not withdrawn. She also also said legal advice was being sought on what recourse the council employees had.
INDUSTRIAL ACTION
The Mayor last night said he had not seen the correspondence from JALGO and therefore could not comment on their demand.
Insiders in the council told The Gleaner that industrial action could start as early as next Monday, if there was no satisfactory response from Mayor Donaldson.
"We met with the workers and they would like to see it retracted by the next council meeting or they will be expressing their objection in no uncertain manner," said Mrs. Davis-Whyte.
LETTER
In their letter to the Mayor, JALGO said "While we understand the Council's need to ensure that there is transparency, honesty and accountability in the management of its affairs, it cannot be acceptable that the zeal to accomplish this objective should override the most basic tenet of our judicial system, the presumption of innocence."
The union urged the Mayor to allow an internal investigation and have the results forwarded to the Finance Committee of the Council, which would then decide whether the Fraud Squad should be called in.
