All in the family at electoral office: audit

An audit of recent hirings at Newfoundland and Labrador's Chief Electoral Office shows family members were commonly hired without competition or advertising.

As part of a wide-ranging report released Wednesday, Auditor General John Noseworthy reported that in the period between April 1, 2003, and Sept. 30, 2005, 11 direct relatives of electoral office employees were hired for temporary jobs.

Three of those positions were filled by children of electoral office employees.

As well, a brother-in-law of then Premier Roger Grimes was hired for another temporary job in August 2003. Andy Lewis left two months later to run as a Liberal in Conception Bay South district. He lost, but was then hired in the Opposition office.

"This is incestuous," Noseworthy told CBC News Wednesday.

"You know, this is contrary to sound management practices. No advertisements, no competitions held, no other objective process for hiring temporary employees, which to me is questionable."

The three cases of hiring children, as direct dependants, are clear breaches of conflict-of-interest legislation.

The report focuses on the period when Wayne Green served as chief electoral officer. Noseworthy told CBC News he did not believe Green was personally responsible for conflicts of interest.

Chuck Furey, the current chief electoral officer, said the report shows clear room for improvement.

"Could we have perhaps done differently in picking people quickly to load trucks, who weren't related to people who work here? Yes," Furey told CBC News.

However, Furey noted that the electoral office when byelections or elections are called must often hire temporary staff in very short periods of time. He said avoiding the hiring of relatives can sometimes be difficult.

Meanwhile, Noseworthy's audit of the electoral office showed another apparent conflict of interest between the office and Bill Murray, the former director of financial operations at the house of assembly.

Murray was suspended last June when Noseworthy's audits involving the legislative spending scandal first surfaced.

The new audit shows that between 2002 and 2004, one of Murray's private companies sold $13,829 of items described as "Newfoundland art and silver key chains" to the electoral office.

Noseworthy noted that Murraysupervised some of the financial transactions of the electoral office.

Noseworthy's audit also turned up inaccurate accounting records, a lack of internal controls, excessive costsfor cellphones and unapproved overtime expenses.