Williams was appointed to head IMPACS in 2009 when Patrick Manning was Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago.
IMPACS, which was created in 2006, has never been audited, according to the Express and it has never prepared financial statements. However it has been spending large sums of money coming from Caricom member states, including Trinidad and Tobago.
The Express said 10 former employees of Trinidad and Tobago’s Security Intelligence Agency (SIA), which the People’s Partnership government in Port of Spain has disbanded, are employed at IMPACS at very high salaries.
It said one of them was hired as a project officer for the International Cricket Council (ICC) World Cup in 2007 at a salary of $15,750 a month but the person has no portfolio within the organisational structure of IMPACS, citing unnamed sources.
With respect to Williams, who was appointed executive director of IMPACS at a CARICOM summit in Belize in 2009, the paper said she is responsible for the general leadership, oversight, administrative and financial management of IMPACS and its sub-agencies, the Joint Regional Communications Centre (Barbados) and the Regional Intelligence Fusion Centre (Trinidad and Tobago).
The Express report said Williams receives a salary of US$11,300 (TT$67,800), inclusive of allowances, has residences in Barbados and in Trinidad and Tobago and collects a monthly housing allowance of US$2,500.
The paper said during 2010 Williams submitted several invoices for hotel accommodation at a location in Barbados but it said checks with the Barbadian authorities and other sources in that country revealed that the hotel identified in invoices submitted by Williams for payment - Darreyl's Bungalow Short Term Accommodation - does not exist.
The paper said it has seen copies of several of the invoices, which it said contained inconsistencies with neither contact information nor address for the hotel. It said the only contact information appearing on the invoices are that of Williams with her address listed at the head office for IMPACS at Sagicor Building, Queen's Park Savannah, Port of Spain.
The Express quoted an unnamed employee as saying, "Most of her invoices for travel are submitted before she leaves for her intended destination and that's wrong."
The paper cited sources who said in July last year Williams submitted an invoice for payment of $US5,740 for a 20-day visit in Barbados to coordinate activities relating to the Caripass project. However staff staff assigned to the project had no knowledge on any such meeting in Barbados around the time of the annual Crop Over festivities, the Express stated.
"If there was in fact a meeting regarding the Caripass project, then why wasn't the staff aware of such and why representatives for that section were not set to attend?
"And furthermore, there was no need for anyone to travel at such expense when the meeting, if it in fact took place, could have been done by video conferencing, a facility available to us," the Express quoted an unnamed source as saying.
The paper said it has been unable to reach Williams to get a comment on the allegations.
READ THE FULL STORY IN THE SUNDAY EXPRESS
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