VICTORIA - The RCMP has asked the B.C. government to withhold results of an audit involving a former high-level bureaucrat in the Health Ministry.
Health Minister George Abbott told The Canadian Press on Monday he will respect the wishes of the Mounties, but ultimately wants to see the audit made public.
The government audit was ordered last summer after an e-mail was discovered where the former assistant deputy minister of health Ron Danderfer asked about a $10,000 cheque from health contractor Dr. Jonathan Burns.
Both Danderfer and Burns were appointed members of Health Ministry committees steering health contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. They are no longer on those committees.
Abbott said the audit conducted by the comptroller's office within the Ministry of Finance found no evidence of wrongdoing in the contract bid process.
But the RCMP don't want the audit released.
"The challenge in respect of sharing that with the rest of the world -- and I'm going to choose my words carefully here because it is sensitive -- is the Ministry of Finance has received a request not to release any copy of the internal audit,'' said Abbott.
"The RCMP have asked that the internal audit be withheld from release at this time. There's probably a few conclusions that could be drawn from that.''
The RCMP could not be immediately reached for comment.
Danderfer and his wife Joan, a bureaucrat in the Children and Family Development Ministry, were placed on mandatory leave from their jobs last summer.
The couple retired from their jobs within days of each other last October.
The New Democrats and others within the medical community raised questions of conflict of interest and wondered whether the bidding process for a $108-million contract for electronic medical records was tainted.
Abbott said the bid process is not tainted and the government intends to proceeded with the awarding of contracts as early as Tuesday.
An internal government letter obtained by The Canadian Press addressed to the Health Ministry from the Labour Ministry says the bid process for the $108 million contract was not influenced by reports about Danderfer and Burns.
"While news media reports appear to link the Burns/Danderfer matter with the electronic medical record procurement, we can confirm that neither of these individuals were involved in evaluating proponent proposals or proponent software demonstrations and testing at any stage of the evaluation process,'' said the Nov. 7 letter from Richard Poutney, assistant deputy labour minister.
"We have not received any information that would link this matter to the electronic medical record procurement,'' said the letter.
Poutney's letter said the awarding of the contracts should not be delayed.
Neither Burns nor Danderfer have ever commented on the controversy.
New Democrat health critic Adrian Dix said the government is not acting responsibly if it awards the contracts prior to providing a full public explanation of the issue.
He said Abbott refused to say the matter was part of an RCMP investigation when asked in the legislature.
