Faculty and Staff Association press for independent investigation
University of Belize (UB) President Dr. Cary Fraser indicated to us today via Selwyn King, UB’s public relations officer, that he is in the process of reviewing a revised payroll audit report prepared by Castillo, Sanchez and Burrell LLP, with the view to having it finalized.
UB chair, Imani Fairweather-Morrison, told our newspaper today that the final audit is expected to be available next month, and that the audit report may trigger further investigations if the board deems it fit.
A week ago, UB’s Faculty and Staff Association (UBFSA) met with Education Minister Patrick Faber, reiterating their call on the Barrow administration to commission an independent inquiry into the payroll transactions of two departments – human resources and accounting, for the period August 2010 to July 2011. Faber told them there would be no such investigation, Association president Allison Haylock-Crawford reported.
Crawford said today that the final payroll audit report, promised last week, has taken inordinately long—as many as 8 months—to complete.
A UB statement issued last October stated that, “Once the external auditors have finalized the audit, it will be presented to the Board for consideration and appropriate decisions.”
UB’s president had asked for some clarifications to be made in the report, and his current review is to check whether those have been adequately addressed, King informed Amandala today.
In December 2012, Crawford wrote Prime Minister Dean Barrow on behalf of her association, calling for an independent body to investigate the findings of the audit report. Morrison said that the audit report needs to be finalized first.
According to Crawford, “…it is obvious that it is in the best interest of the University for a neutral body to investigate the payroll audit report.”
She noted that similar investigations have been commissioned for the Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital (KHMH).
Crawford said that “…[the] UBFSA would like to have this matter handled professionally and not be swept under the rug.”