~ Issue 20-
page document in own defence ~
PHILIPSBURG--ROB Sector Director Joseph Dollison and New Works and Maintenance head Claudius Buncamper eviscerated the SOAB concept report in October 2009 that outlined alleged wrongdoings at the department and concluded that both should be dismissed from their functions for mismanagement of the department and possibly should face criminal charges.
In their 20-page response to the concept report, which they sent to SOAB in October 2009, Dollison and Buncamper addressed the allegations in the report point for point and told SOAB its concept report was suggestive, filled with non-factual statements, lacked understanding of the functioning of ROB and VROM, misinterpreted a number of procedures, and was based on hearsay from the convicted former head of VROM.
Based on his and Buncamper’s explanations and clarifications, Dollison urged SOAB to adjust the “revolting quality” of its concept report before submitting it to the Executive Council.
He told SOAB he would hold the organisation and the investigators personally liable for the unjustified manner in which it branded civil servants with 25 years of service as “unqualified” and “unable” to run the department, particularly if most of it was based on comments from an emotional former civil servant.
Despite answering the charges against them, Dollison and Buncamper never received a response from SOAB on its concept report. SOAB issued its final report to the Executive Council in November 2009 with the same and additional allegations against Buncamper and Dollison, including the advice to dismiss them and the charge that they were not capable of running the departments for which they are responsible.
Dollison and Buncamper responded to the Executive Council this month, along with additional defence statements. They also presented several documents to their legal team to corroborate their defence in a court of law should it ever go that far.
They said SOAB, through its report, had failed to meet the objective of presenting an improvement plan for the department, one of the main requests of the Executive Council. Buncamper also contended that SOAB’s own statement that no certainty could be attached to the accuracy of certain things in its report undermined the report’s validity.
He said the use of words like “probable” and “expect” and statements like “we could not determine” rendered the report completely absurd and the charges against personnel undeserved. He said it was unthinkable that the Executive Council would identify any punishable acts based on a “hearsay” report.
Furthermore, Dollison said that based on the non-factual statements and SOAB’s irresponsible handling of the report, he could only conclude that SOAB had already drawn its conclusions about the departments before the investigation was carried out. Dollison did not deny that administrative errors could have taken place because of a shortage of staff and by his predecessor at VROM.
He said he had assumed responsibility for VROM in late 2005 and problems outlined in the SOAB report from 2005 to 2009 were similar to those before 2005, and thus could be placed on the shoulders of the former head of VROM.
Also, Buncamper said he had deputised for Dollison on very few occasions and could not be held responsible for a number of allegations laid out by SOAB. Additionally, Buncamper was not the only senior civil servant at the department to have deputised for Dollison and approved signed permits. However, this other civil servant was not mentioned in the SOAB report.
Dollison provided detailed descriptions of the various departments, staffing upgrades, the measures that had been taken to improve the departments, the cooperation with the Legal Affairs Department and the cabinet of the Lt. Governor in amending old legislation, and explanations for many of the permit processes for several projects SOAB had tagged as inappropriate or unclear.
He said SOAB’s “hearsay” conclusions that had led to its stringent advice to the Executive Council were not appropriate, as they were based on rumours and innuendos. Wherever shortcomings were discovered and could be substantiated, immediate actions had been taken to address those shortcomings. During the course of 2009, he said, more positive things than negative ones had occurred at the department.
He dismissed SOAB’s allegation that he had had civil servants make drawings for his personal projects as “completely untrue.” Dollison said his personal projects had been drawn up by independent architects. He said that during the construction of his projects, he had requested inspectors to check and double-check that all was in order and being carried out in accordance with the law.
Dollison also challenged SOAB to provide examples of its suggestion that ROB management had pressured personnel or signed documents before proper reports were made or signed off by the relevant department head.
He said permits for one reason or the other took months or longer to be processed in some instances. In those instances (some of which appeared in the media), he said, personnel would be instructed to pay added attention, as the process obviously was hitting a snag somewhere.
He said that in one case, a simple letter from the Executive Council had taken six months to reach the developer of a project and the former head of VROM had misplaced the documents for this project twice. Dollison said he often received deadlines from the Island Secretary with which he had to work.
Buncamper said the impression the report created of permits being issued before a request or without a proper request or payment was farcical and not possible. He said payment was made at the Island Receiver’s Office on presentation of a payment order issued by the building permits section of the department and signed by Dollison and/or his deputy. The building permit number is then placed on the receipt of payment.
If through administrative misplacement these payment orders could not be located by SOAB, Buncamper contended, this did not give SOAB the right to make suggestive statements that people requesting the permits had paid a particular price before a payment order was issued.
Addressing SOAB’s claim that department personnel were not qualified to execute complex projects, Buncamper said this assertion was not correct, as three qualified section heads of the department had been assigned to every mega-project over the last two years.
SOAB’s charge that the relevant laws were not followed and in some cases totally ignored was based on an interview with one civil servant and unproven, Buncamper said. He said it was public knowledge that the building code ordinance was outdated and did not consider modern construction methods that could be misinterpreted.
He said that despite many requests to have the ordinance amended, Sector ROB was still waiting on approval from the Executive Council to spearhead the amending of said ordinance.
Buncamper said there was nothing illegal or strange about his signing a permit for one of Dollison’s projects in Dollison’s presence. He said it was an old arrangement that stipulated that no one might sign a permit that referred to personal or family projects. The same principle is in place for the Executive Council when it approves building permits for family members of Executive Council members. The council member does not sign, but the decision is taken in his or her presence
Buncamper said SOAB had made serious accusations in its concept report, some of which had been fabricated by SOAB. He said the opinion that a civil servant who might have done something wrong in the past was incapable of stopping was disappointing and questioned the integrity of every civil servant, especially in the cases where SOAB could not base any of its findings on facts.
Dollison and Buncamper are awaiting the decision of the Executive Council. Both men’s legal representatives have made it quite clear that should the Executive Council attempt to punish their clients, they will take the fight to a court of law.
“The draft report contained various incorrect statements. The investigative method was questionable, to put it mildly, and did not reflect the requisite objectivity needed to conduct an impartial investigation and make a proper report. Our clients presented SOAB with a 20-page well-documented response on the draft report, outlining all the factual misrepresentations, the unfounded and even suggestive conclusions that were, preliminary, drawn in that report,” the attorneys said.
