The former Government Minister who got a payment was GSD!

The statement by the GSD today on the report from the former Principal Auditor reflects exactly why the report is so biased and unreliable.

In their statement viciously attacking, the GSD rely on references in the report in which the former Principal Auditor has purported to label payments as being in respect of persons he has chosen to identify as supporters of one of the parties in Government, the GSLP. It is unclear on what objective criteria the Principal Auditor has relied to be able to make these purported identifications.

Separately, when referring to a payment to a former Minister, the former Principal Auditor says this in his report, which the GSD quote, with their own narrative added as follows:

“An ex-gratia payment of £60,000 was made to a former Government Minister in 2022–23 (para 5.5.20) with the Auditor observing that ‘despite requesting No.6 Convent Place to provide me with information…I had not been informed of the reasons of this ex gratia payment.’”

The former Principal Auditor knows the identity of the person who received the payment. He complains only of not receiving reasoning for it in time.

In fact, the former Minister on question is a former GSD Government Minister. The payment was in settlement of a claim against the GHA.

The former Principal Auditor is aware of that but does NOT set that out – suggesting that for him party affiliation to the GSD is not something worth remarking on, but alleged affiliation to the GSLP is heinous enough that it should be mentioned specifically in a report.

This further discloses the appearance of bias, if not actual evidence of it, on the part of the former Principal Auditor, to such an extent that all his allusions and conclusions in his "value for money" section appear to be unreliable and party political, designed to benefit the opposition GSD party with whom the former Principal Auditor has had a close family association.

Additionally, the rabid use which the GSD Opposition is making of the suspect findings of the former Principal Auditor's report demonstrated that said report is clearly being used as it appears to have been designed – as a weapon against the GSLP Liberal Government.

The Government will continue to respond to all aspects of the report and expects to continue to expose the many errors that exist within document, ultimately showing how unreliable this biased report is – to the extent that it is unworthy of being referred to as an Audit at all.

ENDS