Categorized | National News

“NO CONFIDENCE IN RBPF WITH DAMES”

The Progressive Liberal Party claims that it has no confidence in the Royal Bahamas Police Force under the direction of Minister of National Security Marvin Dames.  A  statement from the Party released yesterday said, “ the PLP has taken note that the Prime Minister has referred the matter of the Auditor General’s report on the National Sports Authority to the police.

“ We want to make it abundantly clear that the PLP has no confidence that  the Police Force under the direction of Marvin Dames can conduct an impartial, non partisan and independent investigation. Any investigation in these circumstances will be tainted by political bias and therefore will not be worth the paper it’s written on. The  PLP once again called for Mr. Dames to resign or be dismissed.

Former  Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture  Doctor Daniel  Johnson says  that the Auditor General of The Bahamas dropped the ball  in auditing the affairs  of the National Sports Authority.

A report  released recently showed a number of discrepancies  in the accounting of the affairs of the Authority.

Mr. Johnson, appearing on the Radio Love 97 Programme “On Point” on Monday,  said that there is no impropriety on his part in anything he has done in public life. 

On accusations that expenditures to support stadium readiness upgrades lacked transparency, strategic management was inadequate, and contacts lacked formalized process and transparency; Mr. Johnson said that is something always for the audit department of the government to be involved in on an ongoing basis. 

“That’s every year. That’s not ten years later. Every year they’re to look at the operations you’re doing and improve operational efficiency. That’s not a ministerial portfolio job.”, he said. 

The former Member of Parliament for Carmichael  added, “if they [the auditor general]  noticed that from 2011, they should have insinuated in that process.”

However, Mr. Johnson also noted that his comments implied anything untoward the auditor general. 

The report also noted that the procurements process lacked levels of delegation authority and, as a result, under the contract may not have been properly monitored to ensure that deliverables were fulfilled before payments were given. 

Mr. Johnson responded by saying this can be the case in any procurement process. 

He said, “we put on a number a mega events. When those things are coming and we have international standards to reach.

“At one point, we had Iran and Israel sitting about 15 feet apart from each other in our stands. Well, we had to get some security measures in place to meet their standard.”, he added. 

The report also noted that a contract was signed on February 16th 2014 for fencing the National Stadium. 

A company was selected based on their lowest bid of $275,000.  It further explains that the attached invoice totaled $308,000 or $33,500 more.

That stands at 12.3 percent over the approved contract. 

Additionally, none of the invoices were authorized by an agent of the company. On that point, Mr. Johnson said that those types of things do not come before a Minister.

Written by Jones Bahamas

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