Acting Town Clerk Sharon Harry-Munroe has been sent on administrative leave after allegedly failing to carry out instructions issued to her by the Local Government Commission (LGC).
According to Chairman of the LGC, Mortimer Mingo, the Commission had invited the Audit Office to conduct an audit of City Hall, following a recommendation of a Commission of Inquiry last year.
As a result, there was a meeting between the Mayor, Town Clerk and the Auditor General and a request was made by the latter for a number of documents for the forensic audit in May.
Mingo said that by way of a correspondence from the Auditor General, he was informed that the documents requested for the audit were not received at the time of his writing. “Since he did not receive those documents that he would have requested, the Local Government Commission met and deliberated and we wrote to the Town Clerk (ag), instructing her to submit all of the documents as requested by the Auditor General to the Local Government Commission,” Mingo told Stabroek News, while noting that it was intended that the documents would then be forwarded to the Audit Office.
Mingo said that a timeline was then given for the handing over of the documents but Harry-Munroe failed to meet it. He stated that after the Town Clerk would have requested an extension of the time to hand over the documents, she was given seven working days to comply. He said this was not complied with and the acting Town Clerk was then called to a meeting at the Commission.
“She came and she informed me… that she had requested or instructed the acting Treasurer of the council to hand over the documents to her and the Treasurer indicated to her that the documents are sensitive financial information and she cannot hand over that to the Commission,” he said.
“Subsequently, she wrote and said that at some committee at the council that a decision was taken for the documents to be sent straight to the Auditor General’s office,” he added.
Mingo said the Commission took the developments seriously since clear instructions were given and not carried out. Mingo said that as a result the Commission met and agreed to send the Town Clerk on administrative leave. He said following the Town Clerk being sent on leave, the Human Resources Department of the Commission will be dealing with the matter. “Until we conclude this matter, then we will call her back and take a decision on what we’re going to do,” he added.
Mingo noted that he would not be able to say if the Auditor General or Audit Office received all of the documents that were requested. When Stabroek News contacted Auditor General Deodat Sharma, he however, stated that the Audit Office received documents last week. “Yes, we got some documents but I’ll have to check to see if it’s all that was requested. I think they came in sometime last week,” Sharma said.
Harry-Munroe, meanwhile, said that she was prepared to defend herself against any accusations and is confident that she will be vindicated.
