Phillips prods AuGD to probe HEART amid claims of corruption, cronyism

THE PAMELA Monroe Ellis-led Auditor General’s Department (AuGD) is being urged to comb through the books of HEART/NSTA Trust amid allegations of nepotism and corruption at the skills-training institution.

The call came during a People’s National Party (PNP) political meeting in Manchester, where Mikael Phillips, the member of parliament for Manchester North Western, claimed that current operations at the state agency run counter to its mandate.

He also wants the Integrity Commission to investigate activities he deemed questionable at the training institute.

HEART is the l eading provider of technical vocational education and training in Jamaica.

Using Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ arguments that Jamaica will have to import labour to fill positions to launch his attack, Phillips said that there are some 600,000 Jamaicans who are out of jobs because none is available or they lack the required skill set.

“But yet still you have an institution like HEART – where there is nepotism, where dem have jobs for dem friends – that is not meeting its mandate of finding and training young people,” said Phillips, who was speaking at the meeting at Hatfield Primary School.

“Yet still, you have HEART, who spend billions of dollars to put up a booth at Rebel Salute, but that is not the people them who need the HEART programme. You have the same management at HEART, who book hotel rooms for millions of dollars to put on training, but yet still you have students who can’t get certificates who went to HEART from 2018,”the opposition spokesman on transport and mining added.

He said that the time has come for Monroe Ellis and her team as well as the Integrity Commission to investigate the agency “because what is happening inside there will not be to the benefit of any Jamaicans”.

Phillips told PNP supporters that it will take a Mark Golding-led government to cut the scale of corruption he said is presently taking place in the country, adding that Jamaicans are suffering as a result of the current state of affairs.

“I also want to call in the police in North West Manchester. Call in the Ministry of Labour because you have some people going around the place selling and giving out farm work application forms. Anybody that is doing that now should go to prison,” argued Phillips.

“I am just sending a warning to those that are in North West Manchester – dem other people that is doing it – stop it!” he said.

In the same breath, Phillips urged Comrades to cast their ballots when the time comes, telling them he feels “lonely” as the only PNP representative from the parish who sits in the Lower House.