BREAK YOUR SILENCE
AG calls on SRC chairman to speak up on President’s $28,000 housing allowance
By Stories by Ria Taitt Political Editor
Attorney General Anand Ramlogan is calling on chairman of the Salaries Review Commission (SRC) Edward Collier to break his silence and provide details “in the public interest” on the matter involving the payment of a $28,000 tax-free housing allowance to President Anthony Carmona..
“His silence is causing unnecessary consternation and disquiet and has the potential to bring the office of the Chief Personnel Officer (CPO) and the President into disrepute. He (Collier) therefore has a duty to clear the air on this matter,” Ramlogan said in a statement last night.
The Attorney General noted that the CPO by convention was secretary to the SRC and it was in this capacity that she wrote the correspondence, dated July 9, 2013, giving approval for the payment of a housing allowance to the President.
The President receives the unprecedented benefit of a tax-free housing allowance in addition to State-provided accommodation at Flagstaff Hill.
The Attorney General noted that the CPO, on her own, did not have the legal capacity to recommend and approve the housing allowance for the President.
Any such directive would have to come from the SRC, he suggested.
“The secretary of the SRC (the CPO) cannot, of her own volition, make a decision on the President’s housing allowance. That is a matter for the SRC alone. The advice of the secretary is not in any way binding on the members of the SRC. The CPO is not a member of the SRC,” said the AG.
“The SRC is the only body in law that could deal with the terms and conditions of the Office of the President.
It is a legal route by which the President’s allowance could have been paid. Since the Government had no knowledge about this matter, perhaps the time has come for the chairman of the SRC, Mr Edward Collier, to break his silence on this matter in the public interest and provide the necessary clarification regarding its role (if any) in this matter. His silence is causing unnecessary consternation and disquiet and has the potential to bring the office of the CPO and the President into disrepute. He therefore has a duty to clear the air on this matter,” Ramlogan stated.
Collier has thus far refused to comment on the President’s housing allowance, stating that the SRC does not comment publicly on such matters.
“What is in the (SRC) report is in the report,” he told the Express a week ago.
Ramlogan was responding yesterday to statements made by Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley at the PNM’s annual convention, at which he accused Government of knowing about the housing allowance since last year.
Charging the Government with deception, Rowley said: “They would have you believe that they did not know that the President was receiving a hefty housing allowance whilst having a suite of accommodation available to him.
“Let me tell you that this matter was raised in a Public Accounts Committee meeting in the presence of the Government since last year and the Government simply chose to look the other way. Now we have the Attorney General telling us that the CPO is independent and the Government is helpless in this situation,” he added.
Rowley said the Government was not powerless when it gave an “edict” to the CPO that she was not to settle for anything but five per cent with the public sector unions.
“We wait to see who will guide the next Public Service negotiations, since the CPO is independent. You simply can’t trust them (the Government) with anything they tell you,” the PNM leader declared.
On Rowley’s claim that the issue of the President’s housing allowance was raised last year at meeting of the Public Accounts Committee, Ramlogan said Rowley failed to provide any specifics as to who raised it and when.
“These meetings are held in public and televised. No one from the media reported on it and the PNM remained silent on the matter until now?” he asked.
“Assuming, but not admitting, that Dr Rowley’s allegation is true, why did HE remain silent on the matter for over a year? It is reminiscent of him allegedly holding on to fake e-mails for nine months before taking them to the Integrity Commission. Not a single utterance until today?” the Attorney General added.
Noting that Rowley also insinuated that the Government was somehow responsible for the payment of the housing allowance “that has attracted so much attention and disquiet”, Ramlogan stated: “This is a cheap and reckless attempt by Rowley to hitch the PNM to this allowance bandwagon and play politics regardless of the consequences.
“If indeed, the matter was raised by the PNM and nothing was done by the Government, I demand that Rowley provide the details of when this was raised and the steps he took to bring it to the attention of the nation. This will expose the true deception, PNM style.”
On Rowley’s criticism of his (Ramlogan’s) statement that the office of the CPO was an independent one over which the Government had no influence in such matters, Ramlogan said, according to the Civil Service Act, the CPO is the head of the Personnel Department, which has responsibility for addressing remuneration, grievances and classification of offices.
The Government, through the relevant Minister, has influence over the CPO in relation to these specific matters, he said, citing Section 15 of the Act, which states that ‘in the exercise of its duties and functions under sections 14, 16, 17, 18 and 19(1), the Personnel Department shall be subject to the direction of the Minister of Finance’.”
He said Rowley’s bold references to Government’s directive to the CPO on the settling of wage negotiations “missed the mark completely, if not deliberately”.
Noting that the President was not a civil servant, Ramlogan stressed that the terms and conditions for the Office of the President were not subject to the jurisdiction of the CPO.
However, the Attorney General pointed out that when the CPO functions as the secretary to the SRC, she was not performing a function that any Minister has control or influence over.
“It is unfortunate that Dr Rowley, in his usual rush to score cheap political points, failed to properly analyse the law on this matter and misrepresented the facts,” Ramlogan stated.
