Okay, so Auditor General John Noseworthy doesn't think he's muzzled, but are there more police investigations into the House of Assembly than previously known?
Appearing at the legislature's management committee meeting on Friday, Noseworthy said:
When I issued the report in September, I knew, at that point, that the police were actively investigating that report. I talked with the RNC and asked if it was okay to publicly talk about that now. They said, yes, okay, you can talk about it. I explained I had to come before the Commission and I needed to provide an explanation and they said, that is fine. So I knew - and I do not think the public were generally aware of that - it is ongoing today. So the RNC are actively investigating that report.
The Auditor General comments can also be found at that ram audio file.
Noseworthy said that at the time he issued the report in September 2007, he was aware "that the police were actively investigating that report." He didn't say the police were investigating some aspects related to other reports already made public; that is he didn't refer to the investigations that had already resulted in criminal charges being laid against five people. He indicated clearly on Friday the police were investigating the September report, which covered constituency allowance spending by all members of the House of Assembly dating back to 1989.
In the original order in council establishing Noseworthy's second investigation, the cabinet explicitly established his work as a special assignment under section 16 of the Auditor General Act. The first investigation was conducted as a routine audit of the House of Assembly accounts.
Normally, that sort of special assignment would be reported as such - a section 16 assignment - which is what Noseworthy did with the fibreoptic review. However, in both his 2006 and 2007 annual reports, Noseworthy does not list the work as a special report under s. 16 of his own legislation.
In both instances, he lists the work as falling under s.15 of the AG act, the one dealing with suspected improper retention of public funds and similar matters. Bond Papers noted this earlier in 2008.
The only logical reason for reporting in this way would be if Noseworthy had filed additional reports in suspected importer handling of public funds, as required under section 15 of the Auditor General Act, beyond the ones already known to the public.
While Noseworthy can't discuss it, several people can, including the Premier, the Attorney General, the Minister of Finance and the Speaker. That's where responsibility rests for such matters under section 45 of the House of Assembly accountability and integrity act otherwise known as the Green bill. If any reports existed, and they were filed earlier than June 2007 under section 15 of the Auditor General Act, the minister responsible for receiving those reports would be the finance minister.
If there are no reports other than the ones we already know about, the Auditor General and others seem to be going through an awful lot of torture for nothing in their reporting of events. The evident lack of clear disclosure seems to have led to all sorts of misunderstands, in that case.
Sure, there's no muzzle. There never was.
But has the Auditor General been absolutely consistent and factual all along? If so, there may be a much wider police investigation than many previously realized.
-srbp-