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Home » Blogs » Edmund Gall's blog

If you lost $10 million, would you go look for it?

December 10, 2009 by Edmund Gall

Preface: As indicated by Ms Margaret Rose, in her comment below (Comment ID 204), I have made some errors in my post, for which I wish to unreservedly apologise.  The corrections to the original post, which I've left unchanged below so readers can understand the comments and this preface, are as follows:

  • Mr Noel Garcia is NOT the Chairman of the HDC; he is the former Managing Director of the HDC.  The current MD appears to be Ms Jearlean John and the current Chairman is Mr Sydney Mcintosh (based on Googled reports in the Trinidad Guardian, since the official HDC pages on the Ministry of Planning, Housing and the Environment's website do not list the names of the HDC board or its senior managers at the moment). Ms Ria Taitt also referred to him as "former managing director of the Housing Development Corporation" in her article that triggered my post, so I should've spotted this.
  • Prof Uff did NOT ask Mr Garcia if he was going to investigate further - since he is not the current MD, it would be impossible to do so. The following is the beginning of the exchange I refer to in my post below, as quoted from Ms Ria Taitt's article:"Uff then asked whether Garcia would take the view that this issue required further investigation, 'not by the commission because we have taken it as far as we can with the evidence we have, but further investigation elsewhere'."
  • Since Mr Garcia is already the ex-MD of the HDC, my closing sentences are nonsense.

I sincerely apologise for these errors on my part and thank Ms Rose for pointing them out to me. Even if I'm chilled on vacation, I should not have made such errors and apologise to Mr Garcia and any others impacted for any hurt caused.

Regarding Ms Rose's second point, that Mr Garcia had taken responsibility, I was left with the impression that he hadn't based on another report from Ria Taitt in the Trinidad Express of 11 Dec 2009.  The following is the quoted section of an exchange between Mr Garcia and Works and Transport Minister Colm Imbert's attorney Frank Solomon SC: "'It’s not too late to say honourably 'I am the one responsible',’’ Solomon stated, issuing an invitation to Garcia to do, which Garcia refused."

Based on these corrections, one follow-up question I would ask is whether the current Chairman, Mr McIntosh, and current MD, Ms John, share Mr Garcia's view, viz. there is no need to investigate further as no contractor benefitted from the error.  I state why I object to such a view in my preliminary reply to Ms Rose below (Comment ID 206).

Look, I'm on vacation, so I'm too chilled to spend hours online reading and contributing to blogs, as I normally do, but something I read in today's Trinidad Express got me so riled up it punctured my state of chill.  Maybe it's the straw to go with the hay of the scholarship/bursary controversy of the Ministry of Community Development.

The formal public hearings so-called Uff enquiry, which is really the Commission of Enquiry into UDeCOTT and the construction sector chaired by Prof John Uff, ended yesterday.  Political Editor Ria Taitt reported an exchange between Prof Uff and Housing Development Corporation (HDC) Chairman, Noel Garcia concerning the $10 million accounting error for the Cleaver Heights housing project.  In case you don't know, this is the $10 million that our Honourable Prime Minister asked his fellow demoted Cabinet Member, Keith Rowley, to account for some months back.  It turns out that the $10 million was not really missing but a mathematical error that was missed by many folks who should've spotted it before it became a source of such concern.

In short, Prof Uff, after expressing his surprise that such a significant error was not spotted and corrected, inquired whether Garcia was going to investigate further how such a thing could've happened, to which Garcia replied: "What would be the purpose of a further investigation?"

I insert a deliberate pause here so you could re-read the last paragraph.

Read it?  Right.  Now, if you're the head of an organisation responsible for the delivery of tax payer-funded housing projects, and your staff made a $10 million error in a report signed you, would you not want to (a) apologise profusely for the error, (b) take full responsibility for the error not being spotted, or for your organisation's processes being unable to spot that error, and (c) repeat ad nauseum what you're doing to prevent such an error occurring again, beginning with a solid investigation into the root cause(s)?

Chairman Garcia did none of the above.  For that, he should become ex-Chairman Garcia.

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Comments

inaccuracies

December 11, 2009 by From Foreign, 38 weeks 5 hours ago
Comment id: 204

There are several inaccuracies in this blog post.

1. Uff did not ask whether Garcia would investigate it further.. he asked whether Garcia thought the matter merited further investigation? Garcia responded No and gave an explanation why. He stated that it was a mathematical error. The contractor was never paid on the basis of the total estimated contract price, because the contract was negotiated on a unit rate price per house built. If the contractor only built 2 houses at the end of the day, regardless of the total estimated price - he would only be paid for 2 houses. The evidence is uncontroverted that this contractor never benefited from the error - he has only been paid for houses built. So Garcia was saying - if the professionals are saying it was a computational error - having regard to the fact that there is no money missing - what would the purpose of the investigation be? To say hah! you made the error!!??

2. Garcia did take responsibility for the error. He stated that as Executive Director he did have ultimate responsibility and had signed the note to the board.

3. Also Garcia no longer has that portfolio at HDC and therefore it is no longer his responsibility to deal with this. The error according to his evidence first came to his attention in Sept 2008 - several months after he had changed jobs.

Thanks much for your clarification...

December 12, 2009 by Edmund Gall, 37 weeks 6 days ago
Comment id: 206

... The Trinidad Express website is currently down and I don't have the newspaper to hand.  Will recheck the story I based my post on and respond/apologise/correct later.  My recollection of the story at the moment is that Mr Garcia was invited (by another lawyer?) to make a clear statement on his holding responsibility for the error and he declined, and that Prof Uff asked whether he would investigate further since the matter was taken as far as it could within the remit of the CoE.  However, if Mr Garcia is no longer Chairman of the HDC, that would be impossible, so Prof Uff couldn't have asked what I thought he asked and my closing sentence is wrong.

That apart, I don't accept Mr Garcia's rationale that no internal investigation by HDC officials is warranted just because no contractor benefitted from the error.  From the report, unless I'm wrong in my interpretation of it, documents containing incorrect figures were issued and Ministers were led to believe that $10 million was missing.  My view is that good governance seeks to improve existing processes to ensure significant errors are prevented or detected and corrected as early as possible.  No contractor benefitted in this instance, but the reputations of several Ministers were sullied as a result of the delay in detecting this error, and if the root cause is that person(s) didn't think a $10 million variance in figures was significant enough to need confirmation, there's a risk that such a view can lead to improper payments in another future project. It's not about looking back at the circumstances to lay blame; it's about preventing re-occurrence of the error.  Hence, in my view, it is in HDC's interest - and Ministers' and taxpayers' -  to review the circumstances that led to this error occurring and make process corrections where needed.  That's why I objected to Mr Garcia's response, as I interpreted it to mean that he saw no need to do such a review which would mean the risk of such an error re-occurring remains unchanged.

Also, you referred to the error as a 'computational' one.  If by this you meant 'calculation' then disregard the following and I apologise in advance for my misinterpretation.  Some folks have used the phrase 'computational error' to imply that an error was systemic - a glitch in a computer system. This tends to absolve folks of personal responsibility, incorrectly so in my view.  A computer system follows the instructions of humans and very rarely decides to make errors on its own. In the HDC case, the root cause of the error, from the reports I read, appeared to be human.

Clarifying who wrote this for the public.

December 11, 2009 by admin, 38 weeks 1 hour ago
Comment id: 205

The person who wrote that comment is Margaret Rose. Go check out http://www.thecorruptionblog.blogspot/

I would if it was mine, but

December 11, 2009 by Marlon - RadioPolice, 38 weeks 7 hours ago
Comment id: 203

I would if it was mine, but you see these people are spending what does not belong to them and further they don't have to account to anyone. The PM could jump up and accuse Dr. Rowley in the parliament and ask him "where de money gone?" and get away with it. I am convinced that this sort of "so-called errors" is not unique and that this case was used as ammo in an assault on Dr. Rowley. Now I eh no Rowley sympathiser eh, but this is how I see it. Professor Uff asked a very important question, and I too ask, if this was an error, then why was it not discovered if we were to believe these people when they say that they are accountable. “I wouldn’t get a chance to do what I am supposed to do”, what really are you supposed to do Mr. Garcia if not to ensure that OUR monies are not stolen. No one said that you had to calculate anything, but surely the total did not match sir. Therefore to not pick up on this and to come with these ridiculous excuses is shameful in the least.
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