Hew denies ‘abuse’ over pre-election spending
(CNS): PPM Deputy Leader Joey Hew has denied any abuse relating to pre-election spending on roads last year, despite the red flags raised by the Office of the Auditor General in a report, Financial Reporting of the CIG – General Report 2021, which found that almost 88% of the National Roads Authority’s budget had been spent in the two months before the 2021 ballot.
Hew, who was the minister responsible for roads in the previous administration, claimed the accelerated work was done then to make up for “lost time in the pandemic” and because there was reduced traffic volume. But the work wasn’t done in the summer of 2020 when traffic volumes were very low but several months later, well after students were back in school and cars were back on the road.
Auditor General Sue Winspear was very clear in her latest general audit of the government’s reporting on public finances that the spending of such a significant amount so close to the election was a potential abuse of public funds, and the NRA was particularly vulnerable to such abuse because there is no framework governing road building under executive asset spending.
“I noted through the audit of the NRA an unusual spike in ‘executive’ road fund revenue and related costs during the period February–April 2021,” she said, noting that $11 million, which is 88% of the total $13 million executive road construction budget for the first four months of 2021, was spent during the election campaign.
“This could indicate an abuse of public funds in the period leading up to the 2021 general election,” she said. “The NRA is susceptible to political interference whereby, to gain political benefit, politicians with influence over its operations may determine when and where road infrastructure projects can be undertaken.”
While Hew has denied any abuse and even suggested that the OAG “didn’t find any abuse at all”, the officials at the audit office stand by their report. They confirmed to CNS that the concerns were valid and described the situation relating to the road spending before last year’s election as the type of red flag that auditors note for good reason as it is an indication of abuse.
In addition, after the election former NRA chair Alric Lindsay, who recently stepped down from his role on public boards, also raised concerns about the spending. In an article posted on the Loop website back in June, he said there were concerns about the timing of all of that spending from the road fund last year.
He said that because of the observations by the OAG, the new board was “keen to stay within the Board approved strategic operational plan and publicise planned projects and timing of completion so that otherwise negative perceptions do not arise regarding the timing of spending”.
But Hew claimed that the NRA had been working to complete roadworks that were budgeted for, even though both the auditor general and the board chair had indicated that the money had come from the road fund and not all of it was part of the strategic plan.
He said he had supported the work on the East-West Arterial extension, Shamrock Road, the Kings connector, the airport connector road and the Godfrey Nixon Way extension to accelerate delivery and make up for time lost because of the pandemic. He said it was an ideal time to get the work completed before the country opened to tourists.
However, the actual work took place in early 2021 and not, as might have been expected, in the summer of 2020 when the COVID-19 lockdown had been lifted but when students were still out of school and many people were still working from home. Once the schools reopened in September, the traffic was almost back to pre-pandemic levels.
Hew said the recent headline on CNS reflecting the auditor general’s concerns was “disappointing and misleading as it wrongly paints the men and the women who lead the NRA as possibly being corrupt”. However, the OAG did not imply that the civil servants were corrupt but that the situation raised red flags about potential political corruption and that by paving roads the government of the day could sway votes in their favour.
Although Hew claimed that no evidence was provided, “only ill-conceived presumptions”, the OAG had taken a close look at the spending and the lack of a framework to control it, and the NRA’s own chair had also raised concerns about the timing of the spending.
But in his statement released last week, Hew said that, as the minister responsible, it was his role to support the NRA and work with them to ensure they could deliver their programme and to hold them to account for their effectiveness. “I did not interfere with the work of the NRA,” he said.
In the report, the OAG raised a number of other concerns about spending and commitments to spending made by the PPM government during the period after the election was called and the day of the national vote. This included the signing of the ReGen deal with Dart three weeks before the election, committing the next administration to millions of dollars in expenditure, and the Dubai Expo and overseas offices scandal. Winspear said none of this aligned with good practice.
See Hew’s full statement below and the OAG’s full report in the CNS Library.
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Category: Local News
What is the correct protocol to be followed by the general public to request repairs to be done on public roads? NRA please could you let us know.
Call the NRA and ask them
This is an ineffective way of doing things. Requests should be made in writing so they can be proven that they have been made. A simple form online would safice.
Joey – come back and finish WB road.
So did I hear that Stefon Baraud is the new NRA Chair? If so, why is it that the private road in front of his brother’s house just had all its potholes repaired…..by the NRA !!
A developer?! Hahaha this place is unbelievable if true.
Yep and repairs to a private road no less !!
Pope denies catholocism.
Bears insist they are not responsible for pungent deposits in the woods….
Joey Oldboy there is an old African saying “ Take ya hand out de fire or you’ll get burned”. Follow it and shus up bredren 👁
Obviously Hew is not familiar with the old maxim – “ When you are in a hole – stop digging “.. He is becoming the opposition’s k bryan.
Lets not get carried away. He is far away from Cryin Bryan.
Not a single bike lane despite published NRA plan and Joey’s promises from 2015. We paid for them, where are they?!?
10:38 pm Are you blind? They are all along the ETH and marked as such, in addition to being throughout town as well. Recall the NRA making a huge PR campaign about the lanes in town noting that vehicles would have to give way in these marked areas, since there wasn’t enough land (like along the ETH) to create dedicated bike lanes.
Lanes or green marks on the normal road?
5:37 Read the 11:54 post again. But to be clear. The ETH has dedicated lanes for bikes and marked as such. And, in town, where there isn’t enough room to widen the road, the green marks were placed to warm drivers to give way to cyclists in these locations.
Green chevrons are not the same as segregated safe cycling infrastructure.
9:11 am No kidding but better than nothing
Alden tell your protege Joey to hush he really embarrasses himself and the party every time he speaks.
Joey is well spoken. Have you heard Kenneth, Jay, Bernie, John John and Juliana who actually make up words to try and sound smart.
7:14 am Preach….you are soooooo correct
They do make up words, at certain times, but are more intelligent than Barbara Conolly and David Wight.
Think she needs to look further back than that or say nothing. After all, if we are to drag down one Minister why not the rest?
What about Trainer Gate and Hurricane Hilton?
This was a report on the financial audits for 2021 year only. She does this report every year and this is just one small matter in a much bigger report.
Quote: “If we are to drag down one Minister why not the rest?”
That’s a GREAT idea, Anonymous 8:26 pm! It won’t be easy to find honest ones, but maybe it’s worth a try!
Interesting idea – So, if a politician speaks nicely we can rely on what they say as being absolutely factual and 100% accurate. You could be a telephone “scammers” dream victim
People lie. Numbers don’t.
The money was budgeted in the parliament by ALL elected members, no crime there, they spent the money allocated to them.
I would assume the majority of the work benefitted people from the Eastern districts as well so no foul there as there were no PPM members except Jon Jon east of prospect!
This looks like a witch hunt, plain and simple, I for one am grateful that my morning commute was for a time much shorter.
What we need to be concerned about is that traffic returned to disastrous levels and we are back to more than an hour in traffic every morning.
Perhaps PACT needs to continue the work instead of sitting back reading these reports and grinning uselessly at us!
Hey 7:57 pm what is your alcohol level? Don’t you recall that ya Minister also was to fix the strategic problem did he? Shut ya mouth go away and go look Fe ya bubu de!
what benefits? things just getting worse these sides.
Joey Who even suggested that the OAG “didn’t find any abuse at all” – you’re such a flake Joey Hew ☃️❄️
‘and the NRA was particularly vulnerable to such abuse because there is no framework governing road building under executive asset spending.’
Come on Sue, its just like the Govt credit card, if there’s no rule to say not to use it for gambling then whats wrong ?
It’s all very well the Auditor General stating MLA Hew abused his position but what good is it if there in no accountability?
Yes! Where is the accountability? I can’t remember any time that accountability was important for our so-called “leaders”.
LOL, the whole of North Side got paved days after the election. It’s a given.
to 4.14 Since it was done early in Jay’s term it will probably be ok with the Auditor General but if he waits until the last months of his term then he will probably be accused of abuse.
Same dog puppy
Correction CNS- NRA employees are NOT Civil Servants.
Same dog puppy
How could the work have been done 2020 if the budget was approved in 2021. Besides the Government financial position a year earlier in 2020 was less optimistic if not pessimistic.
These are facts that the OAG is speaking/documenting. How in the hell can someone be so stupid to contradicted facts.
@1.54 Facts are not being disputed; what is being disputed is the spin being put on the facts. Fact is that funds were spent on public roadworks in the months leading up to the 2021. Fact is those funds were approved by Parliament. What is being disputed is whether the Government of the day should have spent the funds at that time or left the works unfinished until after the election just so it wouldn’t look like vote buying. Of course this would benefit candidates running in opposition to the Government who could accuse the Govt of failing to do the works needed. In other words doing the works could benefit the incumbents and not doing the roadworks could benefit their opponents. In all fairness the AG should have mentioned this fact. By failing to do so it gives the appearance of being less than totally impartial.
Didnt his own road get paved as well?
Yes. And peripheral areas.
Take a drive down Marbel and see for yourself.
Yep, Joey was very brazen. My road would be the last I would think about paving right before election..but when he da quotes, what unna want him to do? Johann didn’t stand a chance again Asphalt Joey..
True but not because of the paving, Johann killed himself when he had a meeting and told a crowd of permanent residents they deserved the right to vote. Moronic move!
Hew and the PPM openly operate under the assumption that Caymanians are all gullible and unable to see their actions for what they are.
This entire denial boils down to “I know what it looks like but don’t believe your lying eyes”
Looks like the AG thinks Caymanians are gullible and their vote can be bought with public roadworks. Obviously they proved her wrong in the last election.
It still looks like vote-buying no matter how you spin it. The ReGen project is even worse than the roadworks.
She is not commenting on the success of the endeavour, only the attempt. You wouldn’t ignore a robbery you saw because the robbers didn’t get anything, would you? And in any event, didn’t PPM actually succeed in all the seats that they ran in?
I think they may be gullible. Look at who they are voting for.
Think you mean PACt
All of them. Evey last one of these lying cheating politicians.
Joey Who doesn’t care, none of them care.
What else would you really expect Hew or any of the other PPM jokers to say? At the end of the day boss Alden approved all of these shenanigans for political gains. But sadly nothing will be done about it.
Sad but true. I don’t expect anything will be done for anything else, either.
If the Cayman Islands people knew how much money was taken away from them in the last days of the last reign, our leaders might have had to get out of town!
LOL! No-one was suggesting that anyone at the NRA was corrupt, Little Joey.
who cares?…no matter how many reports into the failings of the civil service and cig…no-one is ever held accountable.
just another day in wonderland
We got a whole bunch of roads…
The people benefits and there was no corruption. so move on from PPM bashing to divert from UDPact failings.