Plenty of questions remain a day after bombshell report into outlandish spending at the legislature.
Speaking on NL’s Woodford Show opposition House leader Mary Polak says the report tabled by Speaker Darryl Plecas was shocking noting those allegations will be tested by an outside auditor.
How far back should the audit go?
“The terms of reference are yet to be determined. That is one of the questions that we have to ask ourselves how far back should this go? We will do that in part in consultation with the auditor who is ultimately hired to do this and design it in such a way so that we can get to the bottom of what is going on. Because if these kinds of things are true and if they have been going on for sometime we need to address that.”
Polak was asked if current and previous Speakers have signed off on dubious expenses does that impact any potential criminality?
“We do not know the answer to that. It is one of the things we will hopefully uncover with respect to the audit. I would expect that any audit of that nature would make recommendations to us in so far as our policies at the legislature to make sure that we strengthen the oversight. To a certain extent it does not matter to the public why it happened the public wants to know how we can assure them that it is not going to happen again.”
Polak says the Legislative Assembly Management Committee have asked both Craig James and Gary Lenz to submit a written response to the Speaker’s allegations by February 1st.
“There is no end limit to how long they can remain in the status they are now, which is suspended with pay. The soonest that an action can be taken would be when the legislature sits. We as house leaders will have to take a look at what information we get and we are the ones who will have to make a decision as to what we recommend to the legislature.”
She says only the legislature can determine if Craig James and Gary Lenz continue to be suspended with pay or terminated.
Polaks says “clearly the answer is yes” when asked if it is time to open the legislature itself up to more public scrutiny including allowing it to be open to freedom of information requests.
Currently while FOI requests can be filed into various provincial ministries the legislature itself is immune.
Yesterday the Speaker of the House, Darryl Plecas, unleashed a jaw dropping report detailing allegations of spending and expense abuses from the small, per diems, to the major, hundreds of thousands of dollars in questionable retirement payouts.
