Throw the book at CMU wrongdoers – Golding

FOLLOWING ADMISSION from the Caribbean Maritime University (CMU) that glaring procurement and other breaches were committed at the institution, members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) want to know what action, if any, will be taken by state bodies against “wrongdoers”

Chairman of the PAC, Mark Golding, yesterday highlighted one instance in which nearly US$1 million of taxpayers’ money was wasted on a proposed $701-million, three-storey student block at the CMU’s main campus in east Kingston that has failed to materialise two years after its proposed start-up.

He argued that if it was established that offences were committed, the Financial Investigations Division or Integrity Commission should conduct an investigation.

The PAC chairman recounted that a number of people who had been implicated in the Petrojam scandal left the state-owned oil company unscathed.

“We are still waiting for something to happen, to hold people to account,” he said.

In relation to the CMU probe, which uncovered a litany of breaches, Golding said: “I don’t think the auditor general can be asked to do more than her duty, which she has done by producing this report.”

Corruption-related charges have been laid against president of the CMU, Fritz Pinnock; former education minister Ruel Reid; his wife, Sharen, and daughter Sharelle; as well as Brown’s Town division Councillor Kim Brown Lawrence following a yearlong probe into the education ministry and the maritime school.

Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis, in responding to queries from committee members regarding her special report on the CMU, said that many of the questionable payments did not fall in line with government procedures.