Rahael: NWRHA always was ‘a problem child’

While he refused to accept personal blame, Health Minister John Rahael conceded yesterday the Ministry of Health should have monitored the North West Regional Health Authority (NWHRA) more closely, especially since it was always “a problem child.” He was speaking at the post-Cabinet news conference yesterday at White Hall. Rahael faced a barrage of questions as to why the Ministry of Health did not pick up on the financial delinquency of the NWRHA earlier. The NWRHA owes the Board of Inland Revenue some $103 million for PAYE and $3 million for health surcharge. The money was deducted from salaries, but never remitted to the BIR and NIB. Having been informed that all RHAs were required to submit financial monthly statements to the Ministry of Health, Rahael was then asked whether the Ministry of Health lapsed in terms of its monitoring function.

“As you know the accounting officer in the Ministry of Health is the Permanent Secretary and I do not know if he was aware of the situation before July 16 (when he received a letter from the NWRHA asking for the money to bail it out of its debt),” he said. Asked whether Government was going to issue a strong statement of policy on what were the acceptable procedures, Rahael said the Permanent Secretary had reiterated to the CEOs of all the RHAs that the proper procedures must be followed. “And we are not going to tolerate doing things any other way, than the right way... and we have sent that signal very loud and very strong,” he stressed. He stressed that this problem really only applied to the NWRHA, because the SWRHA and the ERHA were both operating within the law. He acknowledged that the Ministry needed to monitor the RHAs more closely. Asked why the monitoring wasn’t done, he said, “I am not in a position to answer that. I am not the accounting officer.” Asked whether  he was “passing the buck”, Rahael said, “I am not trying to shirk responsibility. I am just laying the facts on the table,” he said.

“The accounting officer in every ministry is the Permanent Secretary. We (Ministers) do not see or issue cheques. Ministers of Government do not handle the day to day running of a ministry. The Permanent Secretary is accountable for that and that is the Public Service Regulations,” he reiterated. Stressing that the Minister could not inspect every payment that was made by an RHA, Rahael said it was the responsibility of the CEOs (who is the chief accounting officer), the financial manager of the RHA and the Boards of the RHA. Asked whether the Permanent Secretary had lived up to his responsibility, Rahael ducked the question saying, “Well there was more than one Permanent Secretary (in the Ministry during the period). But they are the ones responsible to the Ministry for Finance.” Rahael said he hoped to get a report by Monday morning on the entire situation. Rahael said, from his information, the breach began in 2000 when the UNC was in power. He said in 2000, over $5.3 million was not remitted for PAYE and NIS. In 2001, $17.7 million and $10.5 million were not remitted for PAYE and NIS.

It meant that under the UNC-appointed board (between 2000 and 2001) a total of $33 million was not remitted, he said. However the practice continued in 2002 (under the PNM appointed) board, he conceded. He said the information he received so far showed that  in 2003 and 2004 some of the money — which was supposed to be used for NIS and PAYE — went towards the employment of 164 persons, for which there was no budgetary allocation. He said 85 of these were nursing staff while 23 were medical officers. “What the NWRHA should have done, as was done by SWRHA, was to submit to the Ministry the list of the persons, the approved wages and the budgetary requirements,” he said. Noting that both the SWRHA and ERHA did things the correct way, Rahael the NWRHA “suppressed other payments to pay wages, which was wrong.” He also observed that while part of the funding went towards wages, wages alone did not account for all of the money.