Carter retires from CS, ministry confirms
Roydell Carter
(CNS): Roydell Carter, who was on some form of unidentified paid leave from his job as director of the Department of Environmental Health, has retired from the civil service, health ministry officials finally confirmed Monday. Chief Officer Jennifer Ahearn told CNS in response to inquiries that Carter had “opted to retire from the civil service”, but she gave no other details. It is not clear what kind of agreement Carter has struck to retire early and the ministry did not answer our questions about a financial settlement. The ministry said that the current acting director, Richard Simms, will continue in this post until a new DEH director is appointed.
Carter stopped turning up for work around November last year, but throughout his absence the ministry denied that he had been suspended or placed on required leave, and officials have persistently refused to answer questions about the director’s status.
According to other sources close to the issue, the reason for Carter’s absence surrounded questions about overtime payments as well as the mismanagement of staff and the department’s budget. Carter then became embroiled in a protracted dispute with the government, who accused him of being responsible, while he had reportedly blamed the ministry.
It is understood that an internal review examining the issues surrounding overtime for dump workers and garbage collectors has been completed but the document has not yet been made public.
It is also understood that Carter joins a long line of senior civil servants who have walked away with substantial pay-offs from the public purse, in the midst of unexplained disputes and allegations of poor performance and mismanagement or wrongdoing. In most cases the deals are shrouded in secrecy and parties are forced to sign non-disclosure agreements, despite recommendations from the Office of the Auditor General that the government should not be making such pay-offs behind closed doors.
NRA Director Paul Parchment also remains on leave while allegations against him regarding the mismanagement of equipment are under investigation. Parchment was suspended from the road agency in April, but five months later neither the NRA board nor the ministry responsible have made any comment about his current status.
Category: Environmental Health, Health, Local News
as usual with the civil service…another story that leaves more questions than answers
Best wishes Royo. They dont remember that you did a good job with little resources before the population exploded. A great Caymanian gentleman.
His pension and health care for life – just another addition to the national debt.
Anyone seen him around or know if he’s still alive? Hoffa comes to mind. The gag money must have been substantial if he’s still here.
5:57pm starting from you. Come out of your hot seat if you are in the office and step out into the field. What a joke you must be a manager.
Well I guess in the end it was more profitable for him to retire instead of staying to be made a sacrificial lamb for the Ministry’s failure!! Roydell relax, travel and live life my friend; life is short so enjoy it to the fullest!
Lots of screw ups under one CO in charge of HSA and the DEH.
Caption competition for the picture!
Garbage truck for sale. Very low mileage (hardly used except to take kids to school). Contact owner (if you can find me) for further details.
Well I’ve found the truck but where’s the 20 man crew I’m paying to operate it?
He’s got some of the Captain in him (now that he’s retired).
What was the severance payout? Why can’t the ACC compel government agencies and personnel, under threat of arrest and imprisonment, to be transparent? Aren’t they acting in contempt of several laws and against public interest?
9:26pm you must be a well satisfied worker. The public talk is that the same managers are there in deh and the lipards never changed their spots.
What is a lipard ?
This reminds me of a book “The House of Mr Biswas” written by the eminent Trinidadian author V.S. Naipaul and published in 1961. Mr Biswas finally obtains a much sought after job with the Trinidadian Civil Service and breathes a huge sigh of relief, for as he says whatever he does he will never be sacked.He quotes the much circulated joke about the government employee who was caught stealing typewriters from his place of work. The response from his boss was “well move him to a department that has no typewriters then!”.
How little things have changed in the last 50 years.
No insinuation of any theft here, just an illustration of Civil Service tradition.
If this was so righteous why the Blondie dog and pony show on Cayman 27 with graphs showing overtime payments which appeared to be completely staged it kind of remind me of the old Russian propaganda news agency TASS no doubt done with the acquiescence of and collusion with those in the Ministry of Health the question is why??? Which by the way only made me certainly more suspicious about who is exactly is to blame about this entire fiasco with our garbage.
One word:
Waste-to-energy contract
This is very low that corruption can also happen in the dump and garbage business of the Islands . Now it looks like there isn’t any place that it doesn’t exist .
Big business…money talks…..
Just look to North America, you don’t need to dig very deep to see there’s corruption in them there garbage hills.
Three words:
Maths classes.
Word 1: Maths
Word 2: classes
Where’s your 3rd word? ????
8.38am you can’t count! The real problem in the department is lots of waste and no energy.
Please pick up our garbage more than twice a month in spotts Newlands!!!
I do not understand why no one at the Ministry has been hauled over the fire coals for the poor performance of the DEH. It just can be all the directors fault as he reports to the Ministry.
Because the plan is to allow it to fail so it can be privatized for $$$$$$$
Ezzard tried and It looked like our ex governor might have done something about it. What ever happened to him anyway?
Anonymous 12:13pm , he was going to get in the way of their agenda , so he had to go . That’s what happened to him .
If he was off work from November last and the Ministry denied it, then someone at the ministry should be fired for not telling the truth, for tax payers was paying him to stay home.
And pocketing a full pension?
The public talk is that Carter is gone. What about the managers for the solid waste and landfill who sent the over-time to Roydell to be approved.
It is also understood that Carter resigned and the department is running smoothly. Good news to me.
Thank you civil service for continuing to strive for excellence in service. Speaking to some of the staff at DEH they are overjoyed and thankful that action was taken..
We wish Mr Carter well and thank him for his over 25 years of service.
And yet garbage in North Side is still collected days after the assign collection day!!!
How can the CIG and a civil servant enter into a non-disclosure agreement, is that legally possible?
The correct term is “hush money”.
8:27 This is a big can of worms. In the UK it’s been very common for public sector employees to be forced to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in order to make a hassle-free departure after things screw up. The NHS is notorious for using it to silence whistleblowers.
Is it legal? I guess that depends on what they’re trying to hide. Based on the UK experience (and for obvious legal reasons I’m not suggesting this has happened here) NDAs are mostly used to cover up either employee or employer misconduct and it’s normally the latter. In simple terms the employee leaves their job in possession of information that would extremely embarrassing to the employer and the NDA is used to keep it all quiet. In the past UK employers tended to favour sacking or intimidation as the best way to shut up disgruntled employees but after a number of expensive tribunal decisions (one award was over £1million) they now rely on generous severance packages and NDAs to hush things up. Look at what happened with Stuart Kernohan – there was no way on this planet the FCO were going to allow his sacking to be argued in open court so, using our money, they paid him off. I’ll also bet part of the deal was that he agreed to drop his action against Martin Bridger.
What’s interesting is that when these NDAs are breached, as has happened in both the UK and the USA, it becomes apparent that they’re often not worth the paper they were printed on. The aggrieved party may huff, puff and make impressive threats but at the end of the day once the details are released it’s damn near impossible to keep them out of the news and trying to take the whistleblower to court just makes things worse. In the UK it is also illegal to use NDAs to cover up potentially criminal activities like tax fraud.
Another Caymanian over promoted, under qualified and a big pay off. The list goes on and on.
And that crosses the public and private sector. One has to view it as a form of taxation on business.
Happy to see that the Civil Service has stopped giving out personal info on individual civil servants.
Welcome news.
Not really news! My garage is being collected! Move on please.
Your Garage…I would sue..