‘Misspent taxpayers’ dollars, other irregularities’ led to poverty fund’s closure

A slew of financial irregularities, including the misappropriation of public funds, led a senior civil servant to recommend that the Poverty Alleviation Fund be shut down, the House of Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) heard Friday.

The fund was created by the Freundel Stuart administration’s Ministry of Social Care, Constituency Empowerment and Community Development, then run by former minister Steve Blackett. The ministry became the Ministry of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs when the Mia Mottley administration came to power in the May 24, 2018 general election.

Permanent Secretary Gabrielle Springer told lawmakers that upon taking up her position in the ministry a week after the election, she immediately noticed a lack of documentation on exorbitant contracts greenlit by the fund.

Springer found a decade’s worth of information on projects was missing, the PAC heard.

In citing the Auditor’s General report from 2007 to 2019 which noted several instances of clear misappropriation of money from the fund, Springer revealed she, too, had similar findings while doing her own research on the fund when she assumed office. She told the committee that the suspension of the fund was necessary in order to correct the situation.

Springer said: “On numerous occasions, I asked for comprehensive clear information on this fund… it was lacking. So in the absence of clear comprehensive information on the usage of the fund, and the approved criteria employed in selecting individuals and groups for disbursements, as well as the ad hoc submissions that were being received for consideration, as Permanent Secretary and Accounting Officer for the Ministry [People Empowerment and Elderly Affairs], I was uncomfortable with the apparent absence of a transparent system.

“I, therefore, sought the guidance of the Auditor General initially by telephone, and thereafter requested that a special audit be undertaken for the activities of the prior 10 years of the fund, in order to obtain a comprehensive independent understanding of the purposes in which the fund was used, and the criteria employed over the time of the existence of the fund.”

When questioned by Minister of Energy, Small Business and Entrepreneurship Kerrie Symmonds as to what policy she found at the ministry when she joined on June 4, 2018 with respect to the monitoring and evaluation of the assistance carried out by the Poverty Alleviation Fund, Springer bluntly stated there was none readily found. She added that any such policy as it is in other ministries has to be signed off by the minister in charge at the time.

“Policies are normally the remit of Minister – recommendations can be bottom-up where recommendations can come from technical persons, administrative persons, the minister may agree or not agree, or can be top-down where the minister can say this is what to be,” Springer explained. (SB)