NO INTERNAL AUDIT SYSTEM AT TRHA

Members of the Joint Select Committee of Parliament examining the Health Service  expressed surprise Wednesday that there was no internal audit system in place at the Tobago Regional Health Authority (TRHA). This was revealed during a session at Works Building, Shaw Park, at which the committee probed the operations of the TRHA. However, Paul Taylor, Bio-Medical Manager at the TRHA, told the committee that a firm (David Montgomery) had been recently hired to conduct such an audit on a periodical basis. Chairman of the Joint Select Committee, Senator Mary King, was even more concerned when the committee discovered that there was no audit sub-committee of the TRHA Board.

King wanted to know why such a sub-committee was not in place and stressed that with all the allegations of corruption now flying around in Trinidad and Tobago, it was imperative that an audit sub-committee be established within the TRHA Board. The all-day session focused on a wide variety of issues affecting the effective operations of the TRHA. Late yesterday afternoon, members of the committee, accompanied by Scarborough Hospital Medical Director, Dr Maria Dillon-Remy, other TRHA officials, and members of the media, were taken on a tour of the controversial Tobago Hospital project at Signal Hill by Aaron Mitchell, consultant with Turner Construction (US) International — which will be overseeing the continuance of the project which is now at a standstill.