Having questions on contentious medical procurement from Alberta’s auditor general screened by government-contracted lawyers isn’t stonewalling but an effort to enhance efficiency, Premier Danielle Smith said Saturday. Read More
Having questions on contentious medical procurement from Alberta’s auditor general screened by government-contracted lawyers isn’t stonewalling but an effort to enhance efficiency, Premier Danielle Smith said Saturday. In a memo leaked to Postmedia, a senior deputy minister instructs officials to redirect interview requests from the office of the auditor general to the government’s legal counsel.
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Having questions on contentious medical procurement from Alberta’s auditor general screened by government-contracted lawyers isn’t stonewalling but an effort to enhance efficiency, Premier Danielle Smith said Saturday.
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In a memo leaked to Postmedia, a senior deputy minister instructs officials to redirect interview requests from the office of the auditor general to the government’s legal counsel.
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“That should be done by email, and with a copy to me and our legal counsel.” The memo also recommends wording for emails.
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That document has raised outrage from the UCP government critics, who say it shows its repeated vows of an unobstructed investigation into allegations from a former Alberta Health Services CEO about corrupt health-care procurement are worthless.
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“They’re gagging Alberta Health employees from even speaking to the auditor general,” Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said Friday.
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“They’re ensuring the auditor general will only have the information the government wants them to have. This is unbelievable.”
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Health Minister Adriana LaGrange said the practice was a common one and that Auditor General Doug Wylie was aware of the redirection.
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But Wylie’s office told Postmedia on Friday he wasn’t aware of it, didn’t endorse the practice and said it wasn’t typically encountered in his office’s work with government.
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On her regular radio talk show on QR77 Your Province, Your Premier on Saturday morning, Smith rejected any suggestion the move was a coverup, insisting it was being done to streamline the investigation, one of three probes into allegations made by fired AHS CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos.
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“I suppose the auditor general could just be randomly trying to call people or we can have somebody as a navigator to coordinate what he needs, that’s why we have a single point of contact,” said Smith.
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“We want to be able to facilitate access to documents, facilitate the transfer of documents and give (Wylie) what he needs … we want to ensure there aren’t any barriers.
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“We want to make it as efficient as we possibly can.”
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She said 13,000 documents have so far been provided to investigators.
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Mentzelopoulos has claimed she was wrongfully terminated to stop her from investigating sweetheart deals and high-level political interference in multimillion-dollar health-procurement contracts.
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In separate court filings, Mentzelopoulos has claimed her work had been praised by LaGrange and that suggestions she was fired for failing to meet the job’s expectations were “vindictive and malicious.”
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AHS is claiming its former CEO sent nearly a dozen emails containing confidential information to herself the day before her firing — in breach of her employment agreement and giving her employers “just cause” to terminate her.