WESTERN BUREAU — Cecil Davis, deputy mayor of Montego Bay, has modified his initial call for a probe into the expenditure of the roughly $1 million spent on the ceremonial office for the city’s mayor.

Davis, who came to office on a Jamaica Labour Party ticket, is also chairman of the St James Parish Council’s finance and administration committee.

“The wording is sort of wrong about the probe part because for us to call for the (finance) minister to do a probe in this sort of thing is more or less a waste of taxpayers’ money,” Davis said Wednesday.

“…these probes and these investigations take time and money and that’s money that we can use otherwise, so we really would not want the minister to have a probe, of such,” he added.

The day before, Davis had issued a press release calling on finance minister, Omar Davies, to immediately launch a probe into the expenditure that he alleged was carried out without the council’s approval.

On Wednesday, he intimated that he would settle for tighter control of the council’s finances and the reining in of secretary/manager, Christopher Powell

“What we are saying is that it was extravagant and if he is not given proper directive, it will continue; because the secretary/manager has already told us that he has the power and authority to spend whatever is in the budget,” Davis said.

The deputy mayor said he was outraged that the while the council’s previous People’s National Party (PNP) administration had voted to approve US$5,000 for expenditure on the ceremonial parlour, Powell went ahead and spent an additional $650,000 without approval.

Davis, who is also a chartered accountant, described the US$1,750,00 Powell spent to import five blinds from the United States and for the purchase of a desk costing $225,000 for the facility as “an exorbitant amount” .

The arrogance and excessive expenditure by the secretary/manager, he contended, had come against the background of a highly publicised drive by the government to curtail waste and extravagance in the public sector.

The mayor’s ceremonial office is located in the $155 million Montego Bay Civic Centre, which was officially opened by Prime Minister PJ Patterson in 2001. Furnishing of the building began earlier this year and was completed before the local government polls in June.

Meanwhile, Powell has expressed surprise at the media release Davis issued on Tuesday.

“I am totally shocked and all the administration people here are totally blown away because it is the same person (Davis) who said last week that he had no problem with it (expenditure),” Powell told the Observer.

According to Powell, Davis — along with chairman of the Civic and Community Affairs committee, Richard Solome and a team of auditors — went to the facility last week to verify the authenticity of the items purchased.

“They went and they examined all the bills and came back to the finance committee meeting last week Wednesday and said that all the things have been accounted for and there is no evidence of impropriety,” Powell said.

He added that all the items purchased were approved under the previous PNP-controlled council.

“The money was spent even before the last local government election,” the secretary/manager added.