It’s been two days since the lavish expense claims of former Alberta Health Services CFO Allaudin Merali – while he worked for Capital Health – became public. A FOIP request into the expenses he’d claimed between 2005 and 2008 lead to Merali leaving his position with AHS on Wednesday.
“This FOIP request brought a different order of magnitude than what we understood to be the case,” said AHS Acting CEO Chris Mazurkewich, at a news conference Wednesday. “That's where we became concerned about the public confidence in Alberta Health Services and therefore took the steps as agreed with Mr. Merali.”
Merali’s departure was quickly followed by the resignation of Sheila Weatherill, AHS board member, and the person who’d signed off on many of his claims.
In her resignation letter to Health Minister Fred Horne, Weatherill says, in part, “I am concerned there will be ongoing questions about my continuing service as a board member of Alberta Health Services. Therefore, I am putting the interests of the health system ahead of my own, and I have resigned…I would like to clarify that Capital Health had appropriate expenditure policies that were consistent with other public sector organizations.”
In the wake of this controversy, many questions have been raised about expeditures, government oversight, and transparency. Another question that has members of the public and of the medical community are demanding answers to is why Merali was hired in the first place.
“It really looks like there was some deficiencies in the hiring practices around this individual,” says Dr. Donna Wilson, a Nursing Professor at the University of Alberta. “It makes you wonder what kind of policies and practices there are in Alberta Health Services.”
Before returning to Alberta to work with AHS, Merali was involved in the Ontario eHealth controversy, which involved another case of extravagant spending being expensed to the public health system.
Health Minister Fred Horne says he didn’t know about Merali’s history.
“I wasn't privy to the information that's been released. That certainly would have influenced my opinion and raised concern, and I wasn't aware of past history in Ontario and so on."
“I was not aware of the information that was contained in the release before, until it was made public,” Horne adds.
However, Finance Minister Doug Horner says cabinet was aware of Merali’s past, and cleared him for a positional position in Alberta despite his history in Ontario.
“We were aware of that, as I said, we were aware of that, as well as...that would’ve been part of the interview process that we have,” explains Horner.
"I'm also aware of a number of very positive things he has done since then, including some of his international work and some of the work he's done with philanthropy… You balance out a person's career in its totality, not in just one issue,” he adds.
Those with experience in the health services field feel more of AHS’ hiring and expenditure practices need to be closely examined.
“Certainly, in this case, it does not look at all like there was due diligence for finding the right person, with the right skills, and the right moral character for this important leadership position,” says Wilson. “It makes you wonder, who wrote the reference letters or did they even get reference letters for this person, who vetted for this person.”
“Normally, when you hire a top level executive like this, the CEO of the organization is directly responsible for choosing them, as is the board,” she explains, “and in some cases, the Minister of Health. So, it makes you wonder who was involved here or who didn't become involved when they should have been involved doing the background check.”
"The executive search group did do a background check on his finances, and on his security and on his reputation,” says Horner. “I think one would agree it would be a little over the top, if you would, for an executive search team to even request someone's personelle records from an employer."
However, when it comes to hiring someone with control over taxpayer dollars, others disagree with Horner.
"They should have known when they hired this guy back, that this was part of his past," says Scott Hennig with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Still, Hennig says, looking forward, this incident will likely improve transparency in the provincial government and AHS.
"The saying is: sunlight is the best disinfectant, and it’s very true. As soon as you start shining a light on these guys, they clean up their acts.”
Wilson says more must be done to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
“I think we need a public inquiry going back at least 5 years, into looking at the policies and the practices and the spending of all of the executives that were in all of the regional health authorities and the board, as well,” she says, “because we could find that this is really wide-spread.”
“I believe that heads should roll over this,” she adds. “I think more people should be resigning or should be let go because of this.”
With files from Vinesh Pratap
© Global News. A division of Shaw Media Inc., 2012.