Some answers please, INSPORTS

Saturday, November 26, 2011

The findings by Auditor General Mrs Pamela Monroe Ellis into irregular activities at the Institute of Sports (INSPORTS) should be taken seriously.

It has become part of our culture for disclosures about irregularities to be made, only for many of them to die naturally.

The Institute of Sports, which had its name changed from National Sports Ltd shortly after the Jamaica Labour Party won the 1980 general election, has been shrouded in controversy for decades.

It was never a secret to this newspaper that there were employees on the payroll of the organisation who seldom lifted a finger to do work that they were employed to do. The big surprise, though, is that those charged to clamp down on such conduct and restore INSPORTS to an entity that reflects stability, transparency, efficiency and purpose have fallen down on the job, year after year.

Mrs Monroe Ellis told Parliament on November 15 that salaries and travelling allowances totalling $11.73 million were paid out to two employees who had not reported to work for up to seven years, in the case of one.

As strange as it may sound, this is a true reflection of the culture of INSPORTS over the years, and the revelations made by the AG represent a mere drop in the bucket.

Too many employees, past and present, of INSPORTS are allowed to merely collect their monthly entitlements, without proof that they did anything to warrant such financial compensation.

This has to stop. This country cannot afford to continue to pay people who do not work.

A proper system of accountability must be instituted, which will involve reports on the general conduct and performance of all those who committed themselves to collecting a salary in return for selling the State their labour.

The day-to-day leadership of the organisation must be forced to give some answers about INSPORTS's performance. They must be compelled to clarify aspects of some of the findings by the AG and if they cannot properly account for some of the seeming failings of the State agency, then they should be told in clear terms to pack their bags.

The AG stated that 13 of the 14 appraised staff members' positions were unilaterally reclassified to higher grades, which resulted in unauthorised payments of $24.6 million between June 2007 and June 2011.

Out of a staff complement of 69, it seems very odd that only 20 per cent of them could have been appraised. The fact, too, that no approval was obtained from the board of INSPORTS to increase the pay of staff members, in a climate in which a public sector wage freeze is in existence, is another clear example of a monumental breach.

We must therefore ask the obvious question: What was the board, appointed by the minister of youth, sports and culture, doing all this time?

We would have thought that the board members would be monitoring the affairs of the institute like hawks.

Did it not seem odd that INSPORTS's last audited financial statements were submitted at the end of the 1991-1992 fiscal year?

Strange too, we may argue, that no annual report, as required by the Public Bodies Management and Accountability Act, had been prepared since INSPORTS's inception.

The immediate past chairman, the Rev Merrick 'Al' Miller, may yet want to suggest that his recent legal troubles may have prevented him from being as vigilant as he ought to have been.

The truth is, though, that we will continue to have such irregular practices occurring in the public sector if the government of the day continues to appoint statutory boards that are made up mainly of friends of ministers or those who wear political colours that are compatible with political operations at the time.

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Some answers please, INSPORTS