Auditor General Dan Duguay said he would have investigated the matters Cabinet Minister Charles Clifford took to the media if he would have come to the Auditor General’s Office with the same information.
A Commission of Enquiry found Mr. Clifford had wrongly taken confidential government documents and given them to the media. In his defence, Mr. Clifford had said he was acting as a whistleblower and only gave the documents to the media after then-Governor Bruce declined to take any action.
The matters about which Mr. Clifford gave confidential government documents to the media concerned the Boatswain’s Beach/Turtle Farm financing arrangement and the purchase of privately-owned property for the West Bay cruise tender dock for substantially more than the appraised value.
Had Mr. Clifford, who was still a civil servant at the time Mr. Dinwiddy declined to take action, taken the matters to the Auditor General’s office, action would have been taken, said Mr. Duguay.
‘We would have investigated both matters,’ he said. ‘We did investigate the Turtle Farm financing as it was.’
Mr. Duguay said the land purchase would also have led to an audit had the matter not appeared in the press.
‘That would have caught our eye anyway, given the experiences we’d had over the last few years,’ he said, explaining that his office had already published a report on a number of cases where the government paid more than the appraised value for property.
In his testimony during the Commission of Enquiry proceedings, Mr. Clifford said he did not consider going to the auditor general with his concerns.
‘If I had expressed my concerns to the auditor general, he would have been subject to an audit and clearly the auditor general would indicate what he is acting on,’ Mr. Clifford said in testimony. ‘I don’t think that would have promoted a good relationship between me and the Minister [McKeeva Bush]’
Mr. Duguay said Mr. Clifford could have remained anonymous.
‘We would not have disclosed who gave [the documentation] to us,’ Mr. Duguay said. ‘It doesn’t matter if it is a civil servant or a member of the public, we can keep that information confidential.’
The Auditor General’s Office has wide discretion to investigate and report on the government’s financial activities and it does not have to explain why, Mr. Duguay said.
‘The only people we might have to disclose it to if it became a criminal matter would be the police,’ he said.
Mr. Clifford might have actually prevented wider exposure of the West Bay dock land purchase matter by going to the media instead of the Auditor General with the information.
‘Once we read all the articles, there wasn’t much more to report,’ Mr. Duguay said, adding that his office discussed the matter and then decided not to do its own report.
Mr. Duguay said he hopes members of the public understand they can come to his office confidentially.
‘We encourage people to come to us and talk to us about matters that bother them,’ he said. ‘We’re more than happy to talk with them.’
Mr. Duguay said the invitation stood for civil servants as well.
‘We encourage civil servants who see a problem in government that needs to be reported on to come and see us.’
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