Jamaica’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) faced a striking absence of senior leadership from the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) on Tuesday, as the parliamentary panel pressed forward with its review of alarming operational shortcomings uncovered in a recent Auditor General’s report. Neither the sitting chief executive officer Fitzgerald Mitchell nor his predecessor Kevin Allen appeared before the committee, and former UHWI board chair Wayne Chai Chong also declined to attend. Chai Chong notified the PAC he was currently outside the country, and confirmed he would be available to give evidence at a rescheduled hearing on May 12.
According to PAC chair Julian Robinson, Mitchell communicated his decision to skip the hearing through the UHWI board chair, citing legal advice recommending his non-attendance. Despite repeated formal requests from the parliamentary body for a written copy of this legal guidance or a formal explanation for Mitchell’s absence, no documentation has been submitted to the committee to date. Robinson added that Allen, who had previously confirmed he would attend Tuesday’s sitting, failed to show up without offering any advance notice or clear justification for his absence.
Robinson emphasized that the failure of the sitting UHWI CEO to appear, paired with the complete lack of formal documentation explaining his absence, represents a severe disregard for parliamentary authority amid ongoing scrutiny of high-stakes audit findings. “Now, I find, particularly related to Mr Mitchell, his absence and the absence of any formal documentation indicating why he’s not here, to be contemptuous of the PAC and the Houses of Parliament, given the very serious issues that have been raised in the Auditor General report, and given that he is the chief executive officer of the hospital,” Robinson stated.
The PAC launched its review of the Auditor General’s findings on UHWI operations after multiple previous sessions failed to resolve outstanding questions about the hospital’s management and practices. During Tuesday’s hearing, Robinson drew the committee’s attention to existing provisions under Jamaica’s Senate and House of Representatives Powers and Privileges Act, which grants parliamentary committees the legal authority to compel individuals to appear and testify under oath.
Peter Bunting, an opposition Member of Parliament representing Manchester Southern, threw his support behind the committee pursuing stronger enforcement action to secure the attendance of the absent UHWI leaders. Bunting argued that receiving private legal advice does not automatically grant an individual exemption from a parliamentary summons. He noted that protections against self-incrimination, the most common legal grounds for declining to answer specific questions, only apply in the context of active police or prosecutorial investigations. Even in those cases, Bunting added, individuals are required to appear before the committee in person to formally assert that right, rather than ignoring the summons entirely. “To just not appear and ignore the first request and then the summons, I think it would be contemptuous, as you said, and would require some action,” he added.