Former airport accountant turns to courts

| 21/05/2013

shelly ware 2may2013.jpg(CNS): The troubles at the Cayman Islands Airports Authority are continuing as the former financial controller at the government authority is seeking the court’s intervention in the decision by the board to sack her last year. Shelley Ware has filed a judicial review stating that she wants her job back and a finding from the courts that not only was there no misconduct on her part but that she was an exemplary employee. Following an internal audit conducted by one of the directors on the board, Ware was fired by the board chair, Richard Arch, in December 2012 after more than three years at the airport. Ware states in her application that she was never given an opportunity to respond and that the chair did not have the authority to sack her in the first place.

Ware disputes the findings published in the internal auditing report, which was leaked to North Side MLA Ezzard Miller, who passed the document to CNS earlier this year. The report listed a number of allegations against the former airport senior accountant and found that she was guilty of serious misconduct. As a result the board fired her from the authority.

However, Ware states that the board did not have the authority or the grounds to fire her and she was never given a chance to answer the allegations or appear before the board to defendherself.

In her law suit Ware asks the judge to overturn the decision, order her re-instatement and remove any suggestion of misconduct from her record, as well as pay her the salary and pension benefits that she would have earned since last November.

Since the report was leaked, the CEO at the airport, Jeremy Jackson, was also fired and Kerith McCoy has been appointed as the Acting Chief Executive Officer.

The internal audit documented a number of serious issues at the airport, including the misuse of the government credit cards, boozy lunches paid for by the public purse and cases of unresolved theft.

However, following the leaking of the report other information has also been leaked which shows that the board chair and other directors are conflicted as they have direct business interests at the airport and that they have not necessarily removed themselves from meetings or proceedings when the board was discussing issues that could impact those businesses. In addition, the board chair had refused to sign a document regarding conflicts for the preparation of the airports regular annual accounts, as is required by international accounting standards.

Related articles on CNS:

Airport boss report leak

Airport board conflicts

More conflicts exposed at GT airport

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Category: Local News

About the Author ()

Comments (4)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. Anonymous says:

    Will Dick Arch and the other UDP cronies on this Board now resign or will they wait to be removed???

  2. Anonymous says:

    Too much of this goes on. For years, the board at Cayman Airways did the same thing and many people lost their jobs because of the political interference by the board and politicians.

    I understand to some degree this still occurs. If this lady wins her case it could be a precedent for some of those that lost their jobs along the way to get some justice for the public scrutiny and humiliation they had to go through because  of unscrupulous boards and politicians.

    Good Luck Ms. Ware and Godspeed!!

     

  3. Anonymous says:

    I hope JJ gets his day also!!!