The investigation into outgoing AMS VP External Kalith Nanayakkara’s potential conflict of interest has entered its fourth month with no conclusion.
Nanayakkara’s case is the first investigation of the newly formed AMS ethics and accountability committee. He was referred to it on November 25, 2020, for using his AMS email account to send emails to the AMS Events manager on behalf of an independent videographer affiliated with Nanayakkara’s event company, ThePlug Vancouver.
Nanayakkara is ThePlug’s founder and president.
AMS President Cole Evans found those emails after The Ubyssey in November requested any emails Nanayakkara sent mentioning his company from his AMS email account. Nanayakkara issued a public apology shortly after.
Before that, AMS councillors had raised concerns over Nanayakkara’s ties with ThePlug after ThePlug and AMS Events put on a Halloween pub crawl amid the pandemic.
Next year’s AMS executive begins their term in May — raising questions of whether the investigation will finish before Nanayakkara leaves office.
“Ideally, it moves along faster. But again, I’m also respectful of the time that our Council members have and their capacities,” said Evans.
“I think that moving forward, my hope would definitely be that these things move a little bit quicker than they have been progressing.”
Before the committee was formed, Council meted out executive discipline through censure votes. But when Evans faced a vote of censure in April 2020 that ultimately failed, he launched the string of events that led Council to strike the ethics and accountability committee. The ethics and accountability committee was then formed in November and picked up the investigation around the same time.
Evans explained in an interview that the committee would allow for a fairer process. He contrasted it with censure, saying that censure isn’t always fair due to the time pressure and that council members may not be able to get the full picture in the meeting.
“The issues that the [ethics and accountability committee] investigates can have serious consequences, both for the individuals involved and for the Society,” said governance committee chair Sebastian Cooper in a statement to The Ubyssey. “It’s imperative that the focus be on doing a good job and providing a fair process, not just speed.”
“Since the Committee was only created this year, time was spent on establishing some general terms of reference. Now that work is done, hopefully the Committee will be able to move quickly in the future,” Cooper added.
The committee chair position, which is supposed to be the speaker of Council, is currently vacant after Speaker Kareem Ibrahim left Council in December.
In a statement to The Ubyssey, committee vice-chair Katherine Feng said that the committee could be expected to wrap up its investigation in “mid to late March.” Feng said that as part of the investigation, the committee has contacted individuals involved with the situation.
However, it took time for the committee to get on its feet.
“In this particular case, as a newly formed committee, it was necessary to do consultation and research, which often happens outside of committee meetings, in order to establish guidelines for our work,” Feng said.
Nanayakkara was elected a member of the Ubyssey Publications Society Board of Directors and will begin his term in April 2021. The board has no say over The Ubyssey’s editorial operations.
This article has been updated to clarify that Nanayakkara sent an invoice on behalf of an independent videographer affiliated with ThePlug, not directly on behalf of ThePlug.