NDP Gov’t removed one of the best Accountant Generals in VI- Premier Fahie
“We pushed aside the Accountant General [Laurel L. Smith], now we have Ms Scatliffe-Boynes dancing around the track for another 6 months,” Hon Penn stated during the debate on the motion to extend the appointment of Jeanette Scatliffe-Boynes as Acting Director of Social Security Board (SSB) for another six months at the Eleventh Sitting of the Third Session of the Fourth House of Assembly held at Save the Seed Energy Centre in Duff’s Bottom on August 26, 2021.
Hon Penn, who said Ms Scatliffe-Boynes was his aunt, said the acting director should have been confirmed to the post and sought to suggest that it was the government that was holding up her appointment. The same position was taken by Third District Representative Hon Julian Fraser RA, who also said the HoA should have ignored the recommendation of the SSB Board and just bring a motion to have Scatliffe-Boynes confirmed.
Premier Fahie clarified said it was not about Mrs Scatliffe-Boynes…but the Act which calls for the person "who is over the operation of the board" to be recommended by the SSB Board and taken to Cabinet and brought to the HoA.
He added that while the HoA, which represents the Legislature, is independent of the Executive and the Judiciary it cannot be independent of good governance.
“If we want to have Mrs Boynes confirmed the best and cleanest way to do it is to say let us send it back to the Board and have the Board make the recommendation and bring it back to the House… it's not a matter of whether she is capable or not, we know that she is capable.”
‘Somebody playing Rip Van Winkle’
But, according to Honourable Fahie, the Opposition had a lot of nerve to say the former acting Accountant General was pushed aside.
“How could the Member of the Third [District] sit down there and stomach that and didn’t go to the restroom? When the same crew that he is there with removed his wife from being accountant general, one of the best Accountant Generals we had, because she wasn’t an NDP.”
Mrs Kharid T. Fraser was removed from her post as Accountant General without reason when the National Democratic Party (NDP) took office in 2011. It would be the beginning of a string of victimisation of locals by the NDP.
Mrs Fraser would subsequently retire from the Civil Service.
“And then [the Opposition] going come tonight and tell Andrew Alturo Fahie that we pushed aside the last one?
“Somebody is playing the role of Rip Van Winkle.”
Victimisation by NDP Gov’t
Hon Fahie said he would never forget the day Mrs Fraser was removed from office.
Meanwhile, in June 2021, civil servant Ms Anna A. Rabsatt replaced Laurel L. Smith as Acting Accountant General on the recommendation of the Public Service Commission.
Ms Smith was reassigned to the Ministry of Finance.
Ms Rabsatt had served as Acting Accountant General when Mrs Fraser was removed from her post in 2011. However, in what was deemed as another act of victimisation of locals in the public service by the now-ousted NDP Government, Rabsatt was sent on vacation leave in 2013 and never returned to the post as it was subsequently taken up by an Anguillan.
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