NRA’s transparency and accountability boosted under Minster Jay Ebanks Loop Cayman Islands

Black Immigrant Daily News

In an effort to increase transparency and accountability, board of directors of the National Roads Authority (NRA) amended their Board Communication Policy this week to include warnings and, ultimately, suspension without pay from board meetings in cases of a breach of the Board Communication Policy.

Speaking about the changes, NRA board chairman, Alric Lindsay, said that one of the aims was to help the NRA board and Minister Jay Ebanks address some of the concerns raised by the Office of the Auditor General.

Lindsay explained:

One of the things discussed with the Auditor General was that, in previous election periods, over 80 per cent of NRA’s budget was spent within 3 to 4 months of the election date. This drew serious concerns about the NRA’s spending and the need to stay within an operational plan and within budget.

To address the concerns, the new NRA board established a Board Communication Policy setting out parameters for communication with the NRA, including who may give instructions to the NRA.

As Lindsay explained, this Board Communication Policy was important to ensure that the NRA only acts on instructions from authorized persons i.e., the managing director or via directives from Cabinet or the NRA board.

Elucidating on the point, Lindsay said:

The issue that was highlighted in previous years was that members of Parliament reportedly contacted the NRA from time to time to provide instructions for road works in various areas.

The Auditor General noted that some of these works were not set out in an operational plan and, as such, referred to them as “ad-hoc” projects.

With the guidance of Minister Jay Ebanks, the NRA board worked on, and finalized a strategic operational plan last year, together with the recently revised Board Communication Policy, to eliminate the practice of “ad-hoc” projects and to establish proper communication channels where no member of Parliament may give casual instructions to the NRA.

Lindsay added that this approach of prohibiting ad-hoc projects also means that monies must not be spent by the NRA outside the NRA board’s approved strategic operational plan (amended from time to time).

To shore up the NRA’s position, Lindsay noted that the NRA’s managing director, Edward Howard, is also finalizing internal control and operational risk management policies to ensure that these meet the overall objectives of accountability and transparency.

Lindsay emphasized, however, that “none of this works if board members are not also accountable.”

“For this reason, all board members have agreed that any Board Communication Policy breaches will met with initial warnings, followed by suspension without pay,” Lindsay concluded.

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