By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

FORENSIC and internal audits ordered at government ministries and departments will continue unabated with no regard to how matters are “spun by the opposition,” Press Secretary Anthony “Ace” Newbold said yesterday.

The Post Office Savings Bank and the Hurricane Relief Fund have been added to the list of government entities slated for forensic audit, according to Mr Newbold, who defended the government’s track as the mandate given by the Bahamian electorate.

“Prime Minister Minnis has said accountability and transparency are the two watch words of his administration,” said Mr Newbold. “No matter how it’s spun by the opposition audits are going to be conducted across the spectrum of government. That is the only sensible way to get a handle on the state of wherever you are.”

Mr Newbold said: “It is going to happen and there’s no getting around it. This is in keeping with the prime minister’s statement about the need to know what’s going on in the various ministries.”

In his first press briefing at the Office of the Prime Minister, Mr Newbold responded to opposition calls of victimisation in the wake of steps taken to prepare for an audit at the National Insurance Board, a move that saw several senior officials forced to take a vacation. Three of them were given letters on Monday informing them to take leave immediately, while another official who was out of office will be served with the notice upon his return. 

“The opposition will say that but the audits must continue,” Mr Newbold said.

“It’s not as if Prime Minister Minnis came to office and all of a sudden he sprung this on the Bahamian people . . . The Bahamian people have been talking about National Insurance for years, along with everything else.”

Mr Newbold said: “The Bahamian people said ‘we don’t like what’s going on down there’ and so they decided to vote for Prime Minister Minnis and his team and he has to assure the Bahamian people that all is well. The only way he can do that is to conduct an audit, sometimes to get to where you need to get to, you need to move some people around, it’s as simple as that.”

At the Nassau Insurance Board (NIB), Cecile Williams-Bethel, senior deputy director of operations; Theresa Burrows, NIB senior deputy director of business support and administration and Dr Baldwin Carey were asked to take vacation leave on Monday.

Raymond Wells, deputy director of IT, will also be put on vacation leave when he returns to work, The Tribune was told.

Asked whether it was feared that senior officials would hamper the investigation, Mr Newbold said: “The government wants to make sure that none of it happens. The government believes the best way to conduct these audits, it is more likely that they will be able to get to what they need to get to if they do not have to deal with these particular people, whoever they are.”

It is unclear if the NIB audit will be an internal probe or a forensic one, however it was suggested it may become a forensic investigation. 

The Post Office Bank and Hurricane Fund will join the Bank of the Bahamas, Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute, and the Urban Renewal programme; all of which have been slated for external review but with no price tag disclosed.

Mr Newbold could not confirm yesterday whether a firm has been contracted, or how much money has been allocated to cover the expense.

He noted, however, that the firm Ernst & Young made a presentation to Cabinet to conduct audits at government agencies during its May 23 sitting.

The forensic audit undertaken by Grant Thornton Bahamas at the National Insurance Board in 2013 reportedly cost taxpayers $861,000.

“I can’t say that it will happen,” Mr Newbold said when asked whether dismissals were to be expected in the spate of audits. “But it’s certainly a possibility we don’t know what the audits are going to reveal so we don’t prejudge them.

 “People have nothing to fear if they do their jobs,” he added, “you do your job, you have a job.”