Rahael expects NWRHA report today

HEALTH MINISTER John Rahael yesterday said he would make public the contents of a report he expects to receive today about the $106 million which the North-West Regional Health Authority (NWRHA) owes to the Board of Inland Revenue (BIR). The money was deducted from salaries but never remitted to the BIR and National Insurance Board.

Rahael told Newsday that he expects to receive the report today and once he has a chance to thoroughly study its contents, he intends to hold a news conference to lay the facts before the population. The Minister also confirmed that financial auditors were going through the NWRHA’s books on a matter which was separate and distinct from the report which he expects to receive today. Rahael said he preferred not to comment on that matter until the auditors had completed their work for the reported September 30 deadline given to them by the Health Ministry. At Thursday’s post-Cabinet news conference at Whitehall, Rahael said under the UNC-appointed board of the NWRHA (between 2000 and 2001) a total of $33 million was not remitted and this practice seemed to have continued under its successor board.

Meanwhile, former Health Minister Dr Hamza Rafeeq agreed that the NWRHA was a “problem child” while the UNC was in government and that the entire monitoring system for that Authority appears to have “flatlined.” Rafeeq said there was a breach at the NWRHA in 2000 and  persons were charged in connection with that incident. He said the UNC found “gaps” in the monitoring systems within the Regional Health Authorities (RHAs) and after that incident occurred, a note was brought to the then Basdeo Panday Cabinet to correct those deficiencies but it was never laid in Parliament due to the political events of late 2001.

Rafeeq said former Health Minister Colm Imbert resurrected the matter when the PNM assumed office and in 2002, the system received parliamentary approval. He explained that the system was three-tiered with watchdogs at each level. The first involved an implementation steering committee chaired by the minister and including chairmen of the RHAs and representatives of the Finance Ministry and the Inter-American Development Bank. Second was a project execution team, chaired by the Permanent Secretary in the Health Ministry and including the RHAs’ chief executive officers. Finally, a senior Health Ministry official who had the power to outline the ministry’s policy to the RHAs.  Rafeeq said if this system was functioning properly, this latest headache at the NWRHA should not have occurred.