Jersey's Treasury Minister censure motion may not go ahead

It is not known whether the censure motion against Senator Philip Ozouf will go ahead

A censure motion against Senator Philip Ozouf may not go ahead.

Senator Sarah Ferguson said after the Comptroller and Auditor General, Christopher Swinson, resigned, bigger issues were still at play.

<link> <caption>His report</caption> <url href="http://www.auditorgeneral-jersey.org/pdf/LIME_GROVE_HOUSE-REPORT.pdf" platform="highweb"/> </link> into a failed deal to buy Lime Grove House for a new police headquarters was used to criticise Senator Ozouf and led to the motion.

Senator Ozouf said he planned to publish the speech he had intended to make on his censure motion.

Last week the States deferred the vote of censure after the former Interim Treasurer Hugh McGarel-Groves described the process used to write the report as "flawed".

But Mr Swinson said he was confident about the evidence in the report.

<bold>'Protect integrity'</bold>

Senator Ferguson said: "The issues raised by [the] report are too important to be left to just be tucked away.

"I am sorry but we have got to have a proper review of the issues, a proper debate in the States and I do not really mind how it gets to the States but it has to."

Mr Swinson said the office of Comptroller and Auditor General needed to be distant and autonomous from the government in order for it to continue.

He said the only way to protect the integrity of the role was to resign.

Jersey's Chief Minister, Senator Ian Gorst, said: "[Mr Swinson] wrote to me on Friday... saying actually he was concerned that the discussion had become about process rather than the issues in the report and therefore to protect the office of Comptroller and Auditor General he was going to resign.

"You could therefore say he has taken the decision that the office is very important and he wants to protect that and that's why he's resigned."

But Senator Gorst said he did not believe the circumstances surrounding Mr Swinson's resignation would put others off going for the job.