EX-parliamentarian Ronnie Thwaites had no written instructions or “engagement of any sort” for his law firm’s controversial collection of over $10 million for the Post & Telecommunications Department more than two years ago, according to a report by the auditor-general, which was partially revealed in the House yesterday.

But while he last night suggested that questions on the issue should be put to Post Master General Blossom O’Meally-Nelson, Thwaites argued that he could not have collected the money without an agreement with the agency.

“I could not have done anything without getting information from the department about who the clients were,” Thwaites told the Observer.

The scandal cost Thwaites, a popular lawyer, radio talkshow host and social activist, his seat in Parliament on the eve of last October’s general election and apparently his attempt at staging a political comeback by contesting a division in his old Central Kingston constituency.

But while Auditor-General Adrian Strachan’s report — a section of which was brought to the House by commerce and technology minister, Phillip Paulwell — raises questions about government procedures, there was also a rebuke for the Bank of Nova Scotia for allowing two cheques, made to the Post & Telecommunications Department and marked payee only, to be lodged to the account of Thwaites’ law firm.

“It is most surprising that the Bank of Nova Scotia allowed this to be done,” Strachan said in his report.

“When questioned by officers of the Post & Telecommunications Department, the bank, in a letter dated July 5, 2002, explained that the lodgements to the firm’s account, which were made without the endorsement of the payee, were out of policy and were a breakdown in procedure which would be looked into.”

O’Meally-Nelson last July asked Strachan to do an audit of the collection issue when the controversy flared over Thwaites’ business relationship with the government agency. Thwaites, who was then an MP, identified himself as the person to whom Observer columnist Mark Wignall had referred in an article about a public official who had lodged money belonging to a government agency to his company’s account.

Thwaites explained at the time that the lodgement to the account of the law firm, Daley, Thwaites and Company, was because of internal mistakes at his office and that he paid over the money after the error had been brought to his attention, and offered to pay interest.

But in the section of the report tabled by Paulwell in response to questions by Opposition member Audley Shaw, Strachan noted that in the case of two cheques, totaling just over $6 million, the delay in remitting the funds caused O’Meally-Nelson to remind Thwaites “of the need to honour undertakings given to forward amounts collected urgently as the delays constituted a breach of the Government’s financial instructions and could lead to an audit query”.

The cheques referred to were from the Jamaica Public Service Company. One was for $4 million and was lodged to Thwaites’ law account on March 3, 2000. The money was remitted on June 14, 2000.

The second was for $6.066 million. This was remitted in two tranches, the first for $4 million, on June 30, 2000 and the second on July 10, 2000.

While Thwaites had collected, and eventually remitted over $10.3 million, Strachan stressed that O’Meally Nelson had said in a letter that the Postal Corporation of Jamaica, the parent body for the Post Office, “had no arrangement of any sort with Mr Thwaites or his company and that there “were no written instructions to Mr Thwaites’ company to collect outstanding licence fee on behalf of the Post and Telecommunications Department”.

“There was therefore no clear indications of the terms of engagement including collection fees, if any, and time within which collections should be remitted,” Strachan concluded.

In any event, Thwaites did not receive a collection fee, telling Strachan that this had been waived because his offer to pay interest on the money for the period of late remittance had been rejected.