UNC calls on police to probe alleged corruption

THE Opposition United National Congress (UNC) has called on newly-appointed Commissioner of Police, Trevor Paul, to conduct investigations into alleged instances of corruption at a number of Government ministries and State-controlled organisations. In a media release issued yesterday, the Opposition party stated the Manning administration was incapable of conducting “fair and impartial investigations into these incidents of fraud and corruption.” “We are very concerned about the direction the investigation into the multi-million dollar scam at the North West Regional Health Authority (NWRHA) has taken,” the UNC stated.

The UNC noted that the attempt by Health Minister John Rahael, to label the misappropriation of some $100 million as a “management problem” while a former NWRHA chairman, under the UNC, was “handcuffed,” smacked of “a case of different strokes for different folks.” The Opposition also expressed concern over a report that 100 cheques had been stolen from the On-the-Job (OJT) training programme of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Tertiary Education.

“The report that there were ‘ghost’ trainees who received cheque payments even though they were not on the ministry’s OJT database recalls a similar situation, with the National Housing Authority’s (NHA) apartment renovation programme in 2002, when cheques were issued to ‘ghost’ workers bearing the names of some popular US artistes,” the UNC release stated. “And if that was not alarming, there is the report that unnamed persons were stealing deeds from the Registrar General’s office in the Ministry of Legal Affairs and selling properties that did not belong to them,” the release added. The Opposition party is also calling for “swift and serious investigations” by the Fraud Squad to “protect the public interest against a cover-up by Government ministers.”