I can fully understand Bush’s outburst in the LA over Swarbrick’s criticism of his NBF

The best form of defense when you are about to be exposed is attack first. And Cayman Islands’ Leader of the Opposition is a past, present and possibly even future master of this game.

Bully, point the finger and try and bring on board to your side the poor civil servants who actually were not the brunt of the Auditor General’s Report on the National Building Fund (NBF) programme Bush instigated from 2009 through early 2013. He not only instigated it – he controlled it. His poor civil servants had no say in what he said was paid to whom, how much to whom and nothing paid to whom. Bush did have a “Chief of Staff” who would appear to have rubber stamped his master’s orders.

From iNews story published August 16 2015:

“The Programme was operated out of the former Premier’s Office and was described by the Government as “…supporting schools, sporting, cultural and other voluntary organizations…scholarship grants to young persons and grants to churches…” The audit found that it was unclear what the Programme was designed to achieve and that many of the payments were not used for their intended purpose.
“The Nation Building Programme is an example of how not to manage or operate a government programme,” said Mr. Swarbrick. “Government officials needed to step up and fulfil their obligations to ensure that public money was spent prudently and properly accounted for. This did not happen and in this instance with every dollar spent, there was significant risk for misuse and abuse.”
The report describes how many of the students receiving support for attending schools were also receiving funding from another government department. The report also points out that some of the payments circumvented key legislative controls in place for the spending of public funds. See: http://www.ieyenews.com/wordpress/cayman-islands-auditor-general-highly-critical-of-nbf-and-premier-and-dep-governors-response/

“We found instances where funds were used for purposes other than the apparent intended purposes. There were possibly many more such instances that the lack of documentation prevented us from identifying. This is a direct result of the lack of both a clear management control framework and a requirement for accountability for the use of funds by recipients,” the Report says.

The only time I can come out on Bush’s side is the money given to the Hope for Today Foundation, a charity that helps recovering addicts. $130,000 was given to this charity and I expect every penny of it was worthwhile. Help given to addicts that prevents them reoffending is paid back threefold and more if it is successful.

The problem, however, there was no application on file or any evidence of how the amount was determined, how it was to be used or if it was even needed. “Even needed”? Swarbrick should take a first hand look but that is not how accountants work. Everything must be black and white.

“This demonstrates a complete lack of respect for the use of public funds. Support for this type of initiative is normally processed through the budget of another ministry and by officials who have an understanding of the need”, says the Report And continues, ”It is our conclusion that the funding for this initiative was inappropriate and outside the intent of the programme, and without the proper accountability.”

Again, Mr Bush, “No accountability”.

When you are dealing with public funds – you are only the purse keeper. It is not your money. If there is no paper trail it leaves one wide open to speculation and ‘mischievous’ talk especially when the man making the decisions has a reputation for liking the gaming tables.

Although Swarbrick underscored the responsibility of civil servants “to ensure controls are in place to prevent abuse” he recognised the difficulties they were under. There was “a complete absence of a control framework and responsibility for ensuring that public funds were safeguarded”, he said. “We concluded that the government simply wrote cheques to organizations and individuals without any way of ensuring that they would use the funds for the purposes they had stated when applying,”

He pointed to the government culture that led to the political arm overstepping the mark because senior officials felt unable to challenge the behaviour of ministers. One can remember clearly what happened to a Chief Officer some months ago who challenged a Minister over paperwork and was verbally abused for her pains. The Minister in question was not even sacked and another MLA actually suggested the Chief Officer should lose her position!

The NBF was a blank cheque because of the complete lack of information about the programme’s objectives and how it was being operated. And that was Bush’s intention of putting it in place. It was to circumvent the proper channels as they could take up too long a time when the money was needed now.

Surely a seasoned politician like Bush knows that is not how government works?

The Auditor General was doing his job correctly and Bush knows it. Bush shouted, protested, accused and abused. And his behaviour has been recorded by William Shakespeare – “The lady doth protest too much, methinks”.