Proper selection process was followed in appointment of Dennis Chung - Morris Dixon

Information Minister Dr Dana Morris Dixon has defended the selection process in the appointment of accountant Dennis Chung to take over the leadership of the Financial Investigations Division (FID).

The appointment, which was announced by the Ministry of Finance yesterday and will take effect on Monday, June 2, has received some push back, with critics raising concerns about possible bias and conflict.

Those concerns are based on his public comments on the Integrity Commission’s report into Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness.

In a September 18 news article published by Nationwide Radio, Chung questioned the “relevance” of some findings in the report, including the movement of millions of dollars among companies linked to Holness and how a company with limited income provided a $20-million loan to another linked entity.

“You don’t have to lend money like that. [You] can lend money by basically being a guarantor, you know, taking it in one name and sending it to another company. There are some things there that I’m still trying to understand the conclusion from it, because I think there are still some things missing,” he said.

In a September 23 article in the Jamaica Observer, he also remarked that it was not “irregular” for one individual to have 28 bank accounts, stating, “My experience is that if you go into several private-sector businesses or speak to several businessmen, you’ll find that they have a multitude of bank accounts, some of them inactive, some of them they’re using.”

Questions have also been raised about Chung's qualifications to run an agency that is tasked with combating financial crimes and the recovery of assets derived from criminal conduct via the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Morris Dixon, speaking at a post-Cabinet press conference on Thursday, said she could not comment on concerns raised about possible bias or conflict regarding Chung because she has not seen those assertions.

However, she did point to his leadership acumen.

"I've seen a gentleman who has excelled in everything that he has done. I have confidence in the team that does the interviews that selects these individuals. We keep saying it is a process,” she said.

“No one just wakes up, and you know, a Minister calls and says, ‘Here's a job for you.’ It cannot work like that. There is a process where persons apply for a position, interviews are done, there is a criteria that is set in terms of what you want and the competencies you want and then a selection is made at that point. And so that is what has happened in this case,” she added.

She stated that every senior appointment in government goes through a process and that this was followed at the FID.

"There is a process that would have been followed and from all the information I've been given, that process was followed,” said the information minister.

“As government, we have put in place particular systems, especially in the hiring of senior government officials, and those processes were followed. If you have something to say it was not, then tell us that, but the process, as far as what we have, the information on that process has been followed.”

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