Susan Gordon, Business Reporter

Christine Chambers, director of FID. - File

After 17 years of neglect, the Financial Investigations Division (FID), a unit of the Ministry of Finance, is undergoing surgery to make the sick building more habitable, but is also expanding office space to analyse and track sophisticated criminals.

The repairs underway at the 20,000-square-foot Shalimar Road property in Vineyard Town, Kingston, since November are costing about $35 million, but FID director Christine Chambers was cagey on the details - suggesting that the improvements may well go beyond the cosmetic.

It comes after an embarrassing disappearance between August and October 2007 of more than $18 million of cash that was confiscated by the agency as evidence in a court case.

"We are doing different things to a building that has not been painted for the past 17 years," said FID director Christine Chambers. "At the moment when power goes we shut down. We have no standby unit. So that's included in the budget."

Not secure

The roof also leaks, another indication that the building is far from being a secure working environment.

But while Chambers says the refurbishing is more for the health and comfort of staff, the Financial Gleaner understands that the unit is being readied for cases to be prosecuted under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA), a new law passed last year.

That bit of legislation, which allows government to freeze and confiscate the assets of suspected criminals and connected parties, tracks the bosses of organised crime.

Another entity, the Asset Recovery Agency (ASA), was also created under POCA as a statutory body to do financial investigations, working independently but in tandem with the Ministry of National Security.

From a practical standpoint, however, as the law allows, ASA will be a part of FID, falling under the purview of the finance ministry.

Finance has allocated the new entity a $50.7 million budget for 2008/09, while FID - whose role to now has been hunting down laundered funds and going after tax evaders - has got $237.6 million, about 10 per cent more than the preceding year.

Chamber refused detailed comment on expected changes at her agency, saying the issue was to be dealt with by Finance Minister Audley Shaw in his Budget presentation, scheduled for April 10.

Increasing staff

She said, however, that FID would be increasing its staff complement under the new regime to handle its revised portfolio.

"Right now we are rationalising space and putting in work stations and rearranging units to bigger space where a department has outgrown the space," said Chambers.

The director supervises a staff of 75, but wants to grow the number to 115 to make the unit more efficient, she said.

Transformation of the working environment includes replacement of the 14-year-old carpeting, adding a fire escape, new electrical wiring and resetting cables.

"The staff was getting sick with all kinds of respiratory illnesses," said Chambers. "So this is a move more for the health of the people than anything else."

susan.gordon@gleanerjm.com