DIRK’S OUR MAN
Integrity Commission backs Harrison despite public spat over Rooms on the Beach report
AMEMBER of the Integrity Commission has publicly rejected aspects of the contentious report on the sale of the Rooms on the Beach property, but insisted that its author, former Contractor General Dirk Harrison, has the full confidence of the nation’s corruption watchdog agency.
The sale of the St Ann-based property for just over US$6 million less than the US$13.5-million valuation was investigated by the then Harrison-led Office of the Contractor General (OCG). Harrison’s report, which was critical of Cabinet Minister Daryl Vaz for his alleged interference in the sale, was submitted to Parliament last month.
Dr Derrick McKoy, one of five commissioners of the Integrity Commission, made it clear yesterday that he would not accept all the findings in the report.
“I, for one, do not accept all that he (Harrison) has asserted and I think the public and the Parliament would need an explanation as to how I would
have arrived at that conclusion,” McKoy, a former contractor general, said during the first press conference held by the one-yearold commission.
Speaking on behalf of the other four commissioners, the chairman, retired Justice Karl Harrison, went further, saying the findings, in some instances, were “not supported by the evidence”.
He pointed out, too, that in some cases, the language used in the initial report drafted by the former contractor general was “inflammatory”, but declined to cite examples.
The OCG was last year subsumed into the Integrity Commission and Harrison appointed acting director of corruption prosecutions.
Karl Harrison is not related to Dirk Harrison, who sent word