Yet another “audit to nowhere” announced by Barbados Government

August 2008: Michael Lashley announces that government might maybe think about doing something. Maybe. If.

Ho hum. Minister of Housing Michael Lashley has just announced (hold your breath!) yet another audit for wrongdoing by the previous BLP government. Oh wait… this is the same announcement Lashley made in August of 2008!

How many “Special Audit” announcements is that in the last two years? Ten? Twenty?

We’ve lost count.

Here’s what we wrote in 2008 after 9 months of the Thompson DLP government…

Previous Arthur/Mottley BLP Government Shouldn’t Worry: The Fix Is In!

I think I’ve lost track of the number of “Special”, “Forensic” and “Special Forensic” audits talked about by the David Thompson DLP Government. Thompson and his gang are in their ninth month of governing Barbados and one thing is for sure…

The fix is in. There will be lots of shouting and posturing, but no real action will be taken to hold members of the previous administration to account for their corruption. And there will be no real action taken by the Thompson Government to recover any of the millions of our tax dollars that were given away in overpriced sweetheart government contracts by the Arthur/Mottley administration.

… from BFP’s August 2008 article: Barbados Government Announcement Of (Yes, Another) SPECIAL AUDIT for NHC!!! Wow!!! (Yawn…)

Same old, Same old story in the Nation…

CABINET COULD SOON BE having a close look at the controversial sale of state land in Kent, Christ Church, to determine whether laws were broken.
Minister of Housing and Lands Michael Lashley made the disclosure on Friday while delivering the weekly lecture at the Democratic Labour Party’s (DLP) headquarters in Belleville, St Michael.

Lashley said in an interview later: “The matter will be discussed internally at the NHC [National Housing Corporation] and then it will be forwarded to Cabinet.”

He said he was “very disturbed” by the development.

Auditor General Leigh Trotman first raised some concerns about the land sales in a scathing Special Audit of the NHC covering the five-year period April 1, 2003, to March 31, 2008.

Leigh said that under the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) administration, more 
than 80 acres of Government-owned land earmarked by the NHC for housing were eventually sold to private developers, contrary to decisions 
of Parliament.

Minister of Economic Affairs David Estwick, who attended the lecture, said the NHC had acted ultra vires of the mandate given by Parliament.
He told the gathering that Government needed to treat the issue with the gravity it merited.

Government Senator Jepter Ince said: “I want to know, as a citizen of Barbados, what happened to the $16 milion as stated in the Auditor General’s report from the sale of land at Kent that was supposed to go to Country Park Towers.

“All of Country Park Towers never got out the foundation until this present Government came to office. I want a full investigation.”

… Continue reading this article at The Nation: Kent Probe