OPPOSITION spokesman on tourism, Ed Bartlett yesterday said he was sending to the director of public prosecutions an international audit of the Jamaica Tourist Board's (JTB's) New York office, saying that the probe confirmed a raft of damaging allegations, including criminal conduct, made against former senior staff there.

At the same time, Bartlett renewed the Opposition's call for a forensic audit of all the JTB's offices worldwide in order, he said, "to stem the waste and haemorrhaging of public funds that is clearly taking place".

The internal audit was ordered in August by Tourism Minister Portia Simpson Miller immediately after the appearance of an anonymous e-mail accusing three senior JTB staffers in the New York office of:

* criminal behaviour;

* conspiracy to perpetuate dishonesty and impropriety;

* misappropriation of government money;

* using company time for their personal businesses;

* using the JTB's resources to promote and fund the political campaign of an American politician; and

* fraud.

The audit, which Bartlett also released to the media, raises several questions about the relationship between the JTB and a New York restaurant named Bambou which is owned by Noel Mignott, the former deputy director of tourism who resigned after the probe was ordered.

It also raises questions about expenditure for the printing of brochures and pointed to US$1.2 million paid to a Florida-based firm named Zeb Tech Designs over five years.

Included in the report is a letter signed by Mignott and addressed to the JTB's internal auditor, Colin Greenland, outlining the JTB's reason for contracting Zeb Tech Designs and admitting that his (Mignott's) brother, Andrew, "is one of the principal owners of the company and is one of the signatories to the company's bank account".

According to Mignott, he used the firm because it had "consistently extended credit to the JTB for long periods".

In addition, the audit also pointed to poor accounting and recording-keeping at the office, as well as conflict of interest in the sourcing of material.

In the aftermath of the probe, two other senior staffers are no longer employed to the JTB. They are Yvonne Sawyers, the accountant/administrator who resigned, and Marie Deeble-Walker, the advertising relations manager, who was sacked because of "a loss of confidence in her judgement as a senior officer", the JTB said without elaborating.

Yesterday, Bartlett said he released the audit as a sign of the Opposition's intention to run a transparent administration "when it assumes office" this Thursday after tomorrow's general elections.

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