Concerns raised by internal auditors at University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) about improper practices were routinely ignored when brought to the attention of the hospital’s board, while the procurement committee was frequently bypassed.

These were among the startling revelations on Tuesday from hospital staff that stunned members of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), one of whom described the situation as “a cocktail of inefficiency”.

The hospital’s acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Eric Hosin, who led a UHWI team before the PAC which is probing the matter, has been in the position since then-CEO Fitzgerald Mitchell was sent on leave in the face of a damning report from the Auditor General’s Department (AGD) on procurement breaches at the hospital which may have cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

Committee member Christopher Brown asked what internal mechanisms were in place to detect breaches before they happened, while PAC Chairman Julian Robinson asked whether some of the breaches outlined in the auditor general’s report were captured by UHWI’s Internal Audit Department. The response from Chief Audit Executive Dwight McLeish, who heads the department, was startling.

“Yes, Sir, they were captured by the department and reported to the board, but the board did not take any action,” McLeish told Robinson.

Committee member Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn, reacting to the revelations, said it was “very unsettling some of the things that I’m actually hearing, and just from the internal auditor now and what he said that these things were flagged but nothing was done”.

For his part, Hosin admitted that the hospital’s procurement committee was routinely bypassed. He told the PAC that the procurement committee usually meets every two weeks and more frequently when circumstances require them to do so.

Hosin said while minutes are generated from each meeting, as indicated in the audit report, many contracts were not mentioned in those minutes because they were never presented to the audit committee in the first place.

“They were not presented to the procurement committee for review,” Hosin admitted.

Asked by PAC member Heatha Miller-Bennett how the procurement committee gave its approval in such circumstances where contracts were not presented, Hosin reiterated that, “They didn’t approve anything, it didn’t come to them so they would not have approved or rejected anything.”

Pressed for further explanation by Miller-Bennett, Hosin said, “There are things highlighted by the auditor general and by our internal audit where, in fact, items that were processed did not go through the proper procedure, which included the procurement committee having received it, reviewed it, and made a decision on it.”

When she asked if the procurement committee was circumvented in this process, Hosin said, “In some cases.”

Robinson told permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health and Wellness Errol Greene that it was unacceptable that billions of dollars were being spent by the Government at UHWI with no oversight.

“It sounds like a runaway train where somebody, just on a frolic on their own, can spend taxpayers’ money like it’s the wild, wild west. It can’t be so,” said Robinson.

“A cocktail of inefficiency,” was how committee member Kerensia Morrison described the revelations and admission from UHWI staff.

She noted that, according to the audit, documentation was not provided for 51 of 111 contracts; contracts were approved by the then CEO without documented evidence of evaluation or procurement committee review; procurement processes were conducted after delivery of goods and services; retrospective bidding was used to support completed works; contract splitting used to fall below procurement threshold; and direct contracting used for approximately 64 per cent of procurement activities.

Morrison said that in such a scenario, “The opportunity was created for all of these breaches.”

She told Hosin that his responses were “incongruous” after he told the PAC that 29 of the missing files had been located, that efforts were ongoing to locate the others, and instructions issued to discontinue identified practices.

“What were the consequent actions pertinent to these breaches identified in audit findings and who is complicit and/or culpable and what is the head of procurement saying in these matters?” Morrison asked.

Hosin referred to a committee formed by the hospital’s board and headed by Ambassador Kathryn Phipps “to investigate the matters related to the auditor general’s report and to identify staff members who may be liable or culpable in the instances and then make recommendations as to the actions that should be taken”.

“There is also the police and Customs who are involved along with the Integrity Commission who are doing their investigations to identify where there may be anything related to any illegal practice and to take the necessary action,” said Hosin.

He also shared that training has been undertaken for staff and new systems put in place to prevent a recurrence, adding, “And we have issued letters to persons to cease and desist from certain activities.”

In this video grab Public Accounts Committee Chairman Julian Robinson asks questions during Tuesday’s sitting of the committee examining the findings of the Auditor General Department’s performance audit of University Hospital of the West Indies.