KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris says the dis­ap­pear­ance of $90,000 from the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion (SFCC) re­mains a source of deep em­bar­rass­ment to the en­tire or­gan­i­sa­tion, even as he re­it­er­ates that the mat­ter falls out­side the purview of the po­lit­i­cal arm.

This is the sec­ond time Par­ris has ad­dressed the is­sue since the funds were re­port­ed miss­ing ear­li­er this month. His lat­est com­ments came dur­ing an in­ter­view at City Hall yes­ter­day, where he al­so dis­closed that in­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve they now un­der­stand what tran­spired.

On May 16, an act­ing ac­coun­tant placed $6,534.50 in­to a locked cab­i­net that al­ready held $83,465.50 in sealed Re­pub­lic Bank en­velopes. When the ac­coun­tant re­turned on May 19, the cab­i­net had been opened us­ing a key, and the cash was gone. The funds re­port­ed­ly rep­re­sent­ed tax­es and fees col­lect­ed by the cor­po­ra­tion.

In­ter­nal re­port in­di­cat­ed that sev­er­al staff mem­bers had ac­cess to the cab­i­net and key but none was au­tho­rised to re­move the mon­ey. The San Fer­nan­do CID is cur­rent­ly lead­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Par­ris said while he had not re­ceived a for­mal re­port on the in­ci­dent, he re­mained in con­tact with of­fi­cials man­ag­ing the probe.

“I want to hope that this mat­ter comes to an end very soon be­cause it is an em­bar­rass­ing sit­u­a­tion for all of us here at the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion,” he said.

He added that while mem­bers of the pub­lic have raised con­cerns with him di­rect­ly, many ap­pre­ci­ate the sep­a­ra­tion be­tween the ad­min­is­tra­tive and po­lit­i­cal func­tions at City Hall.

“You go to work and you get re­mu­ner­at­ed for an hon­est day’s work and if some­thing does not be­long to you, you should not have the urge to put the or­gan­i­sa­tion in this lev­el of em­bar­rass­ment,” Par­ris said,

He added that if he held an ad­min­is­tra­tive role, dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion would al­ready have been tak­en. He said dis­hon­esty has cre­at­ed a cli­mate of mis­trust with­in the cor­po­ra­tion.

“It is very alarm­ing and I think I made it quite clear that I feel very un­com­fort­able. I do not want to be the head of a po­lit­i­cal arm of any or­gan­i­sa­tion that is cor­rupt. They have to do what they need to do in a very trans­par­ent man­ner and who­ev­er is in­volved in these im­pro­pri­eties, they need to be dis­ci­plined,” he said.

Par­ris con­firmed that Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen had re­quest­ed an of­fi­cial re­port, but em­pha­sised that the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for pro­duc­ing and sub­mit­ting it lies with chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Heather Craw­ford.

Par­ris said Craw­ford had been work­ing on the re­port over the past week, and he hoped it had al­ready been sub­mit­ted to the min­istry’s per­ma­nent sec­re­tary for on­ward trans­mis­sion to Ameen.

The min­is­ter has since called for any­one with in­for­ma­tion about the miss­ing funds to come for­ward. She al­so vowed to re­veal the iden­ti­ty of those re­spon­si­ble once in­ves­ti­ga­tions are com­plete.

Par­ris de­clined to com­ment on the in­ter­nal op­er­a­tions of the fi­nance de­part­ment, in­clud­ing se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols, stat­ing that those are mat­ters for the CEO. He main­tained, how­ev­er, that he and Craw­ford en­joy a co­op­er­a­tive and pro­fes­sion­al work­ing re­la­tion­ship.

Re­flect­ing on the in­ci­dent, Par­ris—who served as coun­cil­lor for Pleas­antville for 15 years—said it was the first time in his tenure that such an event had oc­curred. While dis­ap­point­ed it had hap­pened dur­ing his may­or­ship, he stressed that nei­ther he nor his coun­cil have con­trol over day-to-day ad­min­is­tra­tive pro­ce­dures.

“All of the good things that are go­ing on in the city of San Fer­nan­do and all that hard work we have been putting in as a coun­cil... it re­al­ly damp­ens my spir­its, but I urge that the cit­i­zens of San Fer­nan­do have con­fi­dence in the sys­tem: that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion go on and, as the peo­ple say, let the chips fall as they may,” he said.