Call for acting Saolta CEO to step down in wake of report
The acting CEO of Saolta University Healthcare Group is facing calls to resign this week after a HSE investigation identified his role in awarding contracts to a service provider without a competitive tendering process.
Maurice Power was the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the hospital group when services were procured from Northgate in respect of six separate projects with a total value of €393,231.
Then-CEO Bill Maher worked for Northgate as a consultant and was in receipt of fees during the procurement process of certain services from the company. The HSE investigation found that “it would appear that a potential conflict of interests existed in respect of these contracts”.
It also concluded that contracts between Saolta and Northgate had been awarded in breach of procurement regulations.
Cllr Padraig Conneely has now said that Mr Power’s position is untenable in light of the report, and he intends to call for the acting CEO’s resignation at the next meeting of the Regional Health Forum.
The final report of the investigation details Mr Power’s role in the secondment of an IT project manager from Northgate in 2012 at a cost of €148,445. No quotes were obtained from alternative suppliers for this service.
The report states that Mr Power was a member of the group’s IT Steering Committee, which approved a request for assistance with project management from the Information Services Manager.
Mr Maher told the investigation that he had “no involvement in this procurement”. He stated that there was no framework for the appointment of agency IT staff and that “the CFO (Mr Power) considered this to be the only practical alternative”.
As the value of the contract exceeded €50,000, a minimum of five sealed tenders should have been sought in accordance with relevant procurement regulations.
“Therefore this arrangement with Northgate contravenes National Financial Regulations,” the report states.
“In addition, this expenditure was not disclosed to the Comptroller and Auditor General in line with Circular 40/02,” it concludes.
Mr Power told the investigation that there was no framework for the recruitment of agency IT staff at the time, and disputed that the service was linked to another contract that was awarded without a procurement process.
“This was in essence the recruitment of an IT project manager. We did look to see if there was a framework in place nationally to source IT staff but this is only happening now in 2015. Can we seek clarity where there is no framework in place?” he stated.
“The section above [in the report] which refers to the extension of the CIMS project I believe to be an error on behalf of Northgate in their quote as I clearly understood this to be the secondment of the IT Project Manager and unrelated to the CIMS,” he added.
Cllr Conneely described the HSE report as “damning” and “an insight into the chaos and dysfunction within the upper layers of management at the hospital group”.
“The report has laid bare that contracts were awarded to a company with which the then-CEO had an active business relationship. Maurice Power, the CFO at the time, was necessarily involved in these transactions,” he said.
“The report particularly highlights his role in the secondment of an IT project manager who was paid almost €150,000 without any procurement process, and this was not disclosed to the Comptroller and Auditor General.
“I have continuously raised this matter with senior management of the group over the past two years but I have been repeatedly rebuffed. I am pleased that this insight has finally emerged.
“I believe his position as acting CEO is untenable in light of the report and I will be calling for him to step down at the next meeting of the Regional Health Forum,” added Cllr Conneely.