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Jersey’s top civil servant has hinted that disciplinary action could be taken against Economic Development Chief Executive Mike King and Locate Jersey Director Wayne Gallichan for spending £12,884 on business class flights to a conference in South Africa.
Appearing before the Public Accounts Committee yesterday afternoon, States Chief Executive John Richardson said that he would be looking into what happened – and hinted that action could be taken.
He referred to both the States’ internal Financial Directions and the Civil Servants’ Code of Conduct – but did not go as far as saying that any formal action would be taken.
The hearing follows a report in last week’s JEP that the two men spent £6,442 each on flexible business class return tickets to the African Mining Indaba conference in Cape Town. The JEP report also stated that the two men spent £950 each to stay at the five-star Hilton Hotel in Cape Town, taking the total cost to the taxpayer of their trip to £14,784.
Assistant Chief Minister Philip Ozouf also attended the event, combining it with visits to Rwanda and Johannesburg, along with civil servants – but they took significantly cheaper tickets and their combined trip cost £7,000.
Deputy Scott Wickenden, the vice-chairman of the Public Accounts Committee that heard from Mr Richardson and States Treasurer Richard Bell yesterday, said that Mr Richardson had said that the rules were “pretty clear”.
Deputy Wickenden said: “When asked about the recent headlines about Mike King and Wayne Gallichan spending a significant amount of taxpayers’ money on flights to a mining conference in South Africa, the Chief Executive referred us to both Financial Directions and the States’ employees Code of Conduct, and said the two documents were pretty clear.
“He even went as far as to read out the Code of Conduct, and said that he would be looking into it. I can only assume that there will be some form of disciplinary investigation over the flights.”
One minister has privately expressed fury about the story to Bailiwick Express – saying that against the backdrop of new charges on the public, compulsory redundancies and cuts to services, the story of waste by senior civil servants undermines the work going on to balance public sector finances.
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