Standoff continues between PAC members and Auditor General

 

Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis was on Tuesday forced to defend the integrity of her office after it was suggested at the sitting of parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that information was leaked to the media before it was provided to the committee.

 

In what has been described as an unusual request, government members of  the PAC demanded to know the name of the Gleaner journalist who spoke with the Auditor General regarding her absence from a meeting related to an audit of her department.

 

The audit was done between July and September 2019, but Mrs Monroe Ellis was absent from the exit meeting with internal auditors from the Ministry of  Finance.

 

However, prior to Mrs Monroe Ellis giving her explanation, questions were raised by some PAC members as to how the information that was being sought by the committee last week, appeared to have been answered in an article in the Gleaner newspaper on Tuesday.

 

PAC member Dwight Sibblies suggested to Mrs Monroe Ellis that "based on the details of the article, it is [with] good reason that we would be concerned because based on the information in the article, it seemed to have come from your office."

 

However, the Auditor General denied this, saying she saw nothing in the article that pointed to the information coming from her department.   

 

"I cannot be asked to answer for a Jamaica Gleaner article, Mr. Chairman. I think it is best that the journalist be contacted and an enquiry made as to how he came by his information because what I do know is that information was provided that I was not aware of," she suggested. 

 

Mrs Monroe Ellis explained that she was only asked by the Gleaner to confirm the date of the exit interview with the auditors, which she did.

 

Tense exchanges followed when PAC chairman Julian Robinson sought to move the meeting along and was met with resistance.

 

Mrs Monroe Ellis was also asked by PAC member Robert Miller to divulge the name of the journalist who contacted her.

 

She refused and directed queries to the Gleaner. 

 

"Mr. Chairman, I'm not going to provide that information. I generally do not provide information at the committee when names are asked. If the member wants to know then I guess a letter can be written and I'll provide the information," she insisted. 

 

But PAC member Heroy Clarke accused her "casting a lot more darkness and shadows over the questions that are being asked" instead of previously indicating that "she's unable to answer now and she will seek the answer and then furnish us with it." 

 

The Auditor General was eventually allowed to explain her absence from the exit meeting.

 

She first retracted her statement last week that she was overseas at the time of the entrance meeting, but said she was still unable to explain her absence at this time.

 

Mrs Monroe Ellis confirmed that she was absent from the exit interview as she was scheduled for a meeting of the PAC and felt that the deputy auditor general was capable of handling the matter. 

 

"Though I was not present at the exit interview, I reviewed the report and what I submitted to the clerk last week is evidence that I held a meeting the very next week with the executive management committee. I sent extracts of that meeting showing that we discussed the matters raised by the internal auditor and actually have in that minutes the steps that we would take to actually address those issues," she explained. 

 

The Auditor General told PAC that she had nothing to hide, noting that she volunteered to appear before the committee without being asked, out of her duty to the people of Jamaica.