The special audit of the City Council – it’s making all the news the week – but it’s not news to the Director of Public prosecutions Cheryl Lyn Branker Taitt. Ms. Branker-Taitt today told us that the police investigation file – which she received last Friday - had almost the same information. She noted that the auditors questioned additional persons, but the overall audit covers the same ground as the police report – so she doesn’t see it as having a huge effect on her assessment of the case. The Prime Minister forwarded the audit to the DPP when he got it on Tuesday September eighth – and has since repeated that he expects that criminal charges will be brought.
Speaking with us this evening, the DPP confirmed that charges will be brought, but she declined to say who would be charged, or for what. She did, however, provide us with a general timeline saying that she expected to give the police her instruction on charges by ext week Friday, September 25th. And who will be charged? Like we said, the DPP wouldn’t discuss it. We do know that the man implicated directly in the special audit into the under-depositing practice is Financial Controller Dwain Davis.
We tried to reach Davis for comment today but no matter how many times we called, he was unavailable at all times. But he will present himself to a hearing before a council caucus tomorrow. It is a hearing at which he will be asked to explain the irregularities cited in the report – specifically that for the month of April 2009 where there were $32,000 in under-deposits and $19,000 of that is not accounted for. The auditors found that the sheaf of documents presented by the Mayor and her Finance Management team to justify those under-deposits were inadequate – and in many cases just plain bogus.
Two other employees including the former supervisor of finance presented themselves for a similar fact-finding hearing before a caucus of the council yesterday but Davis wasn’t there because he requested a meeting with the Prime Minister in Belmopan.
