1 month ago
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The Ministry of Economic Transformation (MET) has clarified that the files and documents burnt yesterday were not done in accordance with established policies. The ministry has also noted that none of the documents destroyed were of current relevance and were dated 2010 through to 2012. Chief Executive Officer, Carlos Pol, explained to Love News that the disposal of government files is nothing new as there comes a time when the files are considered irrelevant and are then destroyed to make space for new papers.
Carlos Pol, CEO, Ministry of Economic Transformation: “It’s very important for me to address these very valid concerns that it has been expressed of the incident that happened yesterday evening. Just to clarify the Ministry as with other ministries or departments of government we practice the manual storage of files and these files are open and stored on a daily basis. We have a lot of files and us that work with different multilateral development banks we have an extensive amount of files and it keeps accumulating. So what we have agreed to remove some of them from the office and well we store it in the container and after a certain time we have to dispose of them but we cannot dispose or destroy it unless it has surpassed the amount of time and it depends on the intentional financial institution. It could be between five, to seen to ten years. And not only that but it is very important that these files before we dispose it has been verified by the appropriate auditors. So what was out there was files that were verified by the appropriate auditors and that dates us back from files form 2008 to 2012. So it’s really files that are ten years and older. So they have no relevance to any ongoing project or any initiative that we are working on.”
CEO Pol says internal action is being taken to ensure that there is not a repeat of such an activity outside the established protocols. According to a release from MET, no files can be disposed of or destroyed unless they have surpassed their retention period (typically 5 to 7 years, depending on the international financial institution guidelines) and have been verified by appropriate auditors. Well-known Nigel Petillo captured the burning activity yesterday on video after the public officers had utilized his property to burn the files.
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