By Rehana Ahamad

THE “face-off” meetings between a Human Resources (HR) Committee and selected workers of the State-owned asphalt plant have wrapped up. This confirmation was given by the Senior Minister of Public Works, Bishop Juan Edghill, who indicated that the Board of Directors of the Demerara Harbour Bridge Corporation (DHBC) have already submitted its report as it relates to sanctions for those workers who were deemed culpable of wrongdoings at the plant.
“The chairman has since advised me, by way of correspondence, that those meetings took place, and there is a report that I have to study for the necessary actions to be taken,” Edghill told reporters on Wednesday.

The plant, which is a subsidiary of the DHBC, was placed under the microscope following allegations of corruption highlighted in the local press in September 2020. A team of experts was assembled, and an investigation commenced into the operations of the plant. The probe examined all dealings at the plant for the period 2013-2020. The investigation was wrapped up in December last, and the findings were submitted to Minister Edghill on December 30.
That report was then forwarded to the Board of Directors of the DHBC, and after deliberations, it was decided that the Board’s HR Committee would engage the officers fingered in the mismanagement of the plant.

“The Board has found that particular operatives must be held accountable for the mismanagement, and some of the breaches that took place,” Minister Edghill had said in a previous engagement. Among the employees interviewed by the Board was DHBC Manager, Rawlston Adams, as he was at the centre of one of the more startling findings of the investigation.
The findings of the investigations highlighted that Adams approved the purchase of an $897,000 wristband for himself, as a gift from the company on International Men’s Day 2019. In the report, the investigative team facilitated responses from the DHBC on all of the findings, and in addressing concerns surrounding the very generous purchase, the company said that gift-giving was customary at the organisation, and that “Gifts were also given to all other men within the corporation.”
However, the gift purchases for all of the other men were valued at approximately only $10,000 each. The investigating team determined that due to the lack of an independent approval system, the purchases can be deemed as a misuse of the plant’s funds for personal gain.

Chairman of the investigative team, Chartered Accountant Chateram Ramdihal had explained that for such an expensive purchase, permission ought to have been sought from the Board of Directors, or in the absence of a Board, the subject minister should have had the final say.
In he report, the team recommended that gifts to employees of the corporation be done in accordance with generally accepted principles, and “at arm’s length”.
The probe found, too, that record-keeping and poor credit policies were not only costing the company millions in materials, but had also created an avenue for mismanagement of the State’s resources, thereby paving the way for gross corruption.
Minister Edghill said Wednesday that he will be studying the recommendations of the DHBC Board to determine what sanctions are likely to be instituted against the errant employees.