PARLIAMENTARIANS EXAMINING the annual report of the auditor general were visibly upset Tuesday as they queried a contract of an overseas consultant hired at a cost of $1.8 million and sent on training abroad at the expense of Fiscal Services Limited (FSL).

Senior executive of FSL, Dyon Woolcock, said the consultant was part of a team of three persons sent to receive training from a United Kingdom firm over a three-month period.

The consultant was employed by an overseas contractor to carry out work at the FSL. The Fiscal Services Limited provides information technology services for the Government's tax-collection departments.

She told members of the Public Accounts Committe Tuesday that FSL had partnered with the UK firm to develop a product that the local agency would later implement in the Caribbean.

One component of the exercise could be construed as training while at the same time development work was being carried out, she added.

Specialised skills

But committee Chairman Dr Omar Davies was not impressed by the arrangement, insisting, "If anybody is going to benefit from that training, it should have been a local person, a staff member."

Woolcock explained that FSL could not find three local employees with the requisite skills and knowledge to participate in the training. In that regard, she said the agency was only able to select two staff members and a consultant to send on the training exercise.

"I am not convinced, but I hear you," Davies said.

Committee member Michael Peart suggested that the cost of the training should have been borne by the contractor who employed the consultant.

"This is one way it could have been handled," Woolcock conceded.

Describing the arrangement as a "strange transaction", Andrew Gallimore, another committee member, said he was perplexed that FSL could have invested in the training of a consultant who was recruited to provide specialised skills to the agency.