The Local Government Commission appears to be struggling to pay retired Justice Cecil Kennard in excess of $1 million for his services during the Commis-sion of Inquiry into the operations of the Georgetown City Council.
According to LGC Chairman Mortimer Mingo the contractual agreement between Kennard and the Commission spelt out a sum of money which he was to be paid for a month-long inquiry. Stabroek News understands that that sum was $1.2 million.
Also in the contract was a “clause which catered for an extension of the time period”; having requested and been granted an extension for the hearings to November 30 Kennard is now requesting a similar sum for the extra month.
According to Mingo the sum of money to be paid for the extension “has to be negotiated” as several numbers are on the table.
Deputy Chairman Andrew Garnett however indicated that as far as he is aware the negotiations are complete and the $1.2 million requested by Kennard was part of a request for a supplemental appropriation submitted to the Ministry of Finance earlier this month. “Discussions are complete it just the question of available funds,” Garnett noted.
Mingo acknowledged that a supplementary request was submitted in May but would not confirm that Kennard’s payment was included in the request.
“We asked for the money for a number of things. We had an issue with a shortfall in budgetary allocation to deal with our work programme and shortfall in wages and salaries for two months so we submitted the request to the Ministry of Finance earlier this month and are awaiting feedback,” he explained.
According to Garnett the concern which has been brought to his attention is the timing of the request.
‘I’ve been told we have to apply for supplemental allocations closer to the period when the budget sums will be exhausted. We are applying for November and December salaries and other agencies whose needs are more urgency would have trumped us,” he noted.
Government recently passed a $7.9 billion supplemental for projects within various budget agencies including the Guyana Elections Commission, Ethnic Relations Commission, Ministry of Social Cohesion, Ministry of Public Infrastructure and Ministry of Communities. Meanwhile Mingo stated that the Commission is approximately two weeks away from addressing the CoI recommendations in relation to staff.
“We have interviewed some staff members and recommended charges for some of them. These have asked through their lawyers for more time to defend themselves against these charges and that has been granted. We have about another two weeks before we complete work in relation to these recommendations,” the Chairman shared.
Two months after the CoI Town Clerk Royston King was fired in keeping with recommendations from the report.
King who had been accused of gross misconduct failed to offer a defence and was subsequently dismissed.
Mingo, in an invited comment at the time, said the decision to terminate King’s services was a “unanimous decision of the Commission.” He added that the embattled Town Clerk offered no defence to the charges when he appeared at a disciplinary hearing on January 12th.
The commissioners also indicated that Auditor General Deodat Sharma has been invited to conduct a forensic audit of the council’s finances and Commissioner of Police Leslie James has been contacted about beginning criminal investigations.
Sharma’s investigation began in February and its results are expected to inform the police investigations.
