Auditor General Maria Rodriguez Fires Back at PSU President

A war of words is brewing between Auditor General Maria Rodriguez and Public Service Union President Dean Flowers over who should act when public officers destroy financial records. Two weeks after Flowers questioned how many complaints Rodriguez had taken to the Public Service Commission, the Auditor General is pushing back. She says she did not write the disciplinary rules governing public officers and, ironically, those rules were created by the unions themselves. Rodriguez insists the current framework does not give her the authority to bring disciplinary matters directly before the commission, leaving questions about who must hold public officers accountable.

 

Maria Rodriquez, Auditor General

“It is the bargaining agreement group, the unions that worked with the Ministry of Public Service to create the rules for disciplinary. Later on I can whatsapp you the rules. The rules that were done in conjunction with the unions clearly specifically that in a misconduct, major and minor misconduct by a public officer, a CEO has to initiate the process to submit to the public service commission. So they wrote those rules, so I don’t understand why they are asking me to take someone to the commission. There is no way they are saying that the auditor general can take someone to the commission. It is very specific, the Chief Executive Officer is the person who needs to initiate the disciplinary proceedings and they wrote these rules along with the Ministry of Public Service. And when the CEO does take someone to the commission who sits a the defense table, the unions. So it is important before talking to understand what side of accountability are you. To clarify, I did not write the rules. I did not write the process for disciplinary action. So I am telling you that statement was untruthful.”

 

Rodriquez notes that while a public officer can be criminally charged for failing to provide information, such charges require a legal person which she does not have on her payroll.

 

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