Opposition Spokesperson on National Security, Senator Peter Bunting, has expressed concern about the developments surrounding the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service’ sudden retraction of its press release that sought to address the now controversial change in the job requirement for the head of the Financial Investigations Division (FID), which led to the appointment of Dennis Chung as the Chief Technical Director.
In a statement on Thursday, less than a day after the ministry released a statement on the matter, indicating that it was intended to clarify the matter, but retracted the initial correspondence within hours without any explanation, Bunting said: “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to…”.
Commenting further, he said: “First, we were told that Mr Chung was duly qualified for the post despite his public repudiation of the Integrity Commission’s (IC) findings regarding the prime minister’s uncertified statutory declarations (which the FID has advised that it will be probing). Then it was revealed that the job description was altered to remove the law enforcement experience requirement, a requirement which Mr Chung does not possess.
“Now, the argument is that the candidate who was selected in the first round of interviews, rejected the offer and the job description was changed to attract a broader pool of candidates.
“However, to my certain knowledge, other senior, highly qualified JCF (Jamaica Constabulary Force) officers had also applied in the first round, so why didn’t the ministry make an offer to the second-ranked candidate who met the job requirements?”
The release said the conflicting explanations ‘speak volumes’.
Bunting then suggested that, “It is now unmistakably clear that this appointment was carefully engineered to accommodate a handpicked individual, and the Government is now engaged in an elaborate cover-up to conceal the irregularities in the process.”
The release said further compounding the situation is the fact that changes to job descriptions in the public sector must undergo a job re-evaluation exercise, which can take months to complete, which was said to be the standard for all public sector posts.
The release cited instances where supposed breaches the established procedures and practice have led to the raising of serious concerns.
The release further stated that, “The ministry’s abrupt retraction of its press release has only deepened public suspicion and raised more questions about this secretive process. The Public Service Commission (PSC) must immediately come clean and reveal all details of this process, including the following:
1. The identities of the interview panel members
2. On whose authority, and by what process, was the law enforcement qualification eliminated?
3. How many qualified candidates applied to each of the ads in the process?
“The Opposition further demands that Dennis Chung resign from the FID so that the public can be assured that this important institution remains free from undue political interference and retains the full capacity and independence to investigate high-level financial crimes, regardless of who may be implicated.
“At a time when public trust in institutions is already fragile, and our anti-corruption institutions are under assault, this episode threatens to further undermine confidence in the Government’s commitment to good governance, anti-corruption and the rule of law,” said Bunting.
