According to the Eightieth Report of the Salaries Review Commissions general Review of Salaries and other Terms and Conditions of Service of offices within the purview of the Salaries Review Commission, under the heading Recommendations CHIEF SECRETARY in Chapter 21 - the Tobago House of Assembly, the report states - Housing - Official residence to be maintained by the Assembly. Where the official residence is not available for occupation and appropriate alternative arrangements for official accommodation are not established, an allowance of $9,200 per month to be payable. Yet, according to the letter written by one Gladstone Solomon of Hope Village, Tobago and published in the Trinidad Guardian on Friday November 1st 2013, the writer states - “The Tobago News of October 27 reported that “temporary accommodation for the Chief Secretary Orville London, while his official residence undergoes repairs, will cost taxpayers over $45,000 a month for the next six months.” The writer quotes the 89th Report of the Salaries Review Commission which I do not have access to, but the wording of the clause is exactly the same as in the 80th with only the amount or the allowance changed from $9,200 per month to $10,300 per month in the following sentence: “According to the last comprehensive review of the Commission, the 89th Report, an official residence for the Chief Secretary is to be maintained by the Assembly... “Where the official residence is not available for occupation and appropriate alternative arrangements for official accommodation are not established, (my emphasis) an allowance of $10,300 per month to be payable.” According to a comparable article in the Trinidad Express entitled London moves to Plantations dated Oct 31 2013, the article claims - “London and his family are expected to reside at Villa #81 at Tobago Plantations from today until April 30 next year,” with no indication as to who owns said Villa, what are the terms and conditions of the tenancy and who authorized the payment of a sum so grossly outside the parameters for official housing as laid out by the SRC. In dealing with the issue, Administrative officer for property management Herbert Delancy provided the Express with a two-page document on the matter, in which he quoted the SRC circular as clearly stating that, as it applies to the Chief Secretary, the “official residence (is) to be maintained by the Assembly, (and) where the official residence is not available for occupation and appropriate alternative arrangements for official accommodation are not established, an allowance of $10,300 per month to be payable”. In his and their understanding of the wording of the clause, the sum quoted applies only if no alternative arrangements are established, but this could never have been the meaning nor the spirit behind the wording as it made the deliberate effort to establish a value. By this reasoning if this interpretation were to be accepted and if one were to move from the ridiculous to the absurd, what then is there to prevent the THA from providing a house at a cost of a million dollars a month? Coming back to reality, there are questions here that need to be answered, chief among them being: - Were any laws broken in this matter? - What is the Salary Review Commissions view of the THAs interpretation of the housing clause? - Who within the Tobago House of Assembly authorized this expenditure? - Was there a request for proposals document put out and this Vila chosen from among a list of comparable alternatives? - Who is the owner of Villa #81 at Tobago Plantations? It is my humble view that an enquiry should be launched to get answers to these and other pertinent questions, and perhaps now is as good a time as any for the Integrity Commission to get involved so as to identify what if any wrong doing took place and who the guilty parties are, or, in the absence of any wrong doing, to vindicate the THA in this expenditure and pave the way for a tightening up of their wording by the SRC. It is a most irregular situation to say the least, where such wide parameters could exist as the guidelines for something so otherwise forthright and I daresay easily pinned down. Either way we need a resolution on this matter, the sooner the better.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 23:13:14 +0000
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