PNC/R flays health minister over sum refunded to hospital
Stabroek News
October 5, 2002
The PNC/R has charged that Minister of Health, Dr Leslie Ramsammy has been complicit in acts of impropriety at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) and cited a sum of money paid over to him by the institution and which has now been refunded.
Ramsammy was in Berbice yesterday and could not be reached for comment.
The PNC/R has also charged that GPHC Board Chairman Doreen de Caires neglected her public duty in dealing firmly with corruption at the institution and was guilty of protecting the corrupt, a charge which de Caires has rejected.
Speaking at the PNC/R weekly press conference held at Congress Place, Sophia on Thursday, the party’s chairman Robert Corbin said that since the party began to expose corrupt practices at the GPHC, Ramsammy had refunded the sum of $120,000 paid over to him from the coffers of the GPHC which he had requested as allowances.
Corbin said that the party had in its possession a copy of the handwritten note by Ramsammy in which he wrote to the Chief Executive Officer Michael Khan on August 7, 2001 asking him to pay over the money from the hospital’s funds as part of his allowances.
Describing this act as misuse of taxpayers’ money, he said Ramsammy is paid by parliament and any advance on his salary should be made by parliament and not by any other office.
The PNC/R said that Ramsammy has in his employ, for over a year now, a driver who is paid by the GPHC.
Stating that this was also an impropriety, Corbin said that the driver, Rajendra Singh, was employed by the GPHC on May 1, 2001 and seconded to the minister that same day.
Corbin said that the GPHC has paid his salary from the time he was employed to the current date while Ramsammy has been collecting a chauffeur’s allowance for the entire period from parliament for this driver.
He said that in the party’s possession were copies of the letters of appointment and secondment by the CEO as well as a copy of the request for a year’s extension for the driver from the minister.
Meanwhile, Corbin said that the minister in a letter dated August 4, which he copied to de Caires, stated that he was quite satisfied with Khan’s answers to allegations that he had conducted corrupt acts at the GPHC. These acts included the alleged sale of personal property to the GPHC without receipts; use of a government motor vehicle while receiving an allowance and irregular practices related to Tender Board procedures.
The minister’s “dismissal” of the matter, Corbin said, was “proof of his collusion with or acceptance of the corruption in the hospital.” When Ramsammy had been asked by Stabroek News about these charges against Khan he had said that they were being investigated.
In an invited comment yesterday, de Caires, also Managing Director of Stabroek News, said that while she could not speak on behalf of Ramsammy, the allegations made by the PNC/R were being investigated and the Auditor General’s office began auditing the GPHC’s books last Wednesday.
She said that even the response by Ramsammy to the charges levelled against the CEO was sent to the Auditor General’s office.
Because of the current investigations, de Caires said that Khan who was on leave and should have already been back on the job has been given additional leave until next Wednesday to allow the AG’s office to complete its work.
She contended that the GPHC Board is not a one-person outfit but an aggregate board which collectively makes decisions. (Miranda La Rose)