“Who, really, is running operations at the airport?”
This is the question being asked by a businessperson who alleges there are no financial checks and balances in place at the V.C. Bird International Airport.
It was only last week, during a sitting of the Lower House, that Finance Minister Gaston Browne admitted he did not know when the Citizenship by Investment Unit had last been audited – in contravention of the relevant law.
Now, an inside source is alleging that, since oversight of the Airport Authority’s finances rests outside the ambit of Central Government, the books of the statutory body are pretty much a guarded secret – except to a few.
According to Section 16 of The Airport Authority Act, 2006, financial oversight of the statutory body is the responsibility of the minister of aviation, with the director of audit required to approve any independent audit firm hired by the Authority’s board.
However, the source insists that proper review of the body’s operations is lacking, since the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Aviation does not sit –even as an ex officio member – on the board of directors, all of whom are handpicked by the Cabinet, which it is eager to please.
According to research, the last independent audit was undertaken in 2019 – seven years ago – and the director of audit has not conducted a review in that time, either.
In the interim, the source alleges that financial decisions by the board are taken at the direction of the Cabinet and in the interest of certain officers – which has compromised transparency.
As evidence of the opaque manner in which the Authority operates, the source points to the high turnover in the management ranks of the Authority, which has seen at least four sudden departures of senior officers in recent years.
There are claims of other shortcomings, as pointed out by the source and the businessperson – including in security, with allegations that drugs are being loaded onto aircraft in a highly organized operation.
They remind the public that a large shipment of a prohibited drug was discovered on a flight out of Antigua to London not so long ago, and they ask why there was no local investigation into that incident.
With the announcement by JetBlue, last week, that it will cease operations here on October 31, just at the start of the Winter tourist season, the sources believe the United States is taking a hard and disapproving look at the country’s aviation industry, which does not bode well for many sectors of the workforce and the economy.
And with the much-touted meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government scheduled to be held here in a few months, they say there are holes that need plugging urgently.
However, they have little confidence that there is the political will to impose accountability and transparency at the country’s main gateway.
