Karen Mackenzie
Northern News Services
Published Monday, June 9, 2008

NUNAVUT - The release of a standing committee report on the Nunavut Business Credit Corporation (NBCC) will hopefully help "clear the air" around the lending agency, according to Rankin Inlet North MLA Tagak Curley.

"It's important because right now everybody who had any dealings with the NBCC, everyone was a suspect," said Curley, a member of the standing committee on government operations and accountability.

"There were too many weak controls, but all this is pretty much history now because the management has been strengthened," he added.

The legislative body was charged with the review following the release of auditor general Sheila Fraser's scathing report on the agency last November.

The first of its two public hearings began shortly thereafter, during which the committee questioned current and former employees and government officials.

In a report tabled by committee chair Hunter Tootoo in the legislative assembly last week, the group made eight main recommendations to strengthen the NBCC's operation and add to its transparency.

"The first is ramping up the entire credibility of the loans process," said deputy-chair and Cambridge Bay MLA Keith Peterson.

The committee recommended the business credit corp develop new reporting systems to track its impacts on the local economy, like job creation, and identify which industry sectors to target in the future.

It also urged the government to update and tighten the NBCC act to require greater annual disclosure of its activities.

"There has been too little transparency at the Nunavut Business Credit Corporation for too long," Peterson told the house.

It also called for greater screening of applicants before hiring. In his statement, Tootoo pointed to the shock members felt when they learned the NBCC's former acting CEO Allan McDowell was charged with fraud at the time he testified to the committee.

McDowell was subsequently convicted.

He also quoted former CEO Mel Orecklin, who told the committee he had freely admitted to "having no experience in the financial sector" during his job interview.

The committee also recommended the government table in the legislative assembly the final report expected from the RCMP on its investigation of the NBCC.

Curley said he had hoped the RCMP would provide more information to protect innocent parties from being "painted with the same brush."

"RCMP are conducting a fishing expedition where they have it so broad without narrowing it down," he said.

Since last fall the NBCC has been moved into Iqaluit offices and has continued its lending activities under new CEO Phillip Baghoutie.

The standing committee recommended the government release a status report on the implementation of its action plan for the NBCC next fall, before the final sitting of the legislative assembly.