The Office of the ICAC did not interrogate a single person as part of an investigation last financial year, which the Acting Commissioner claimed was due to renovations to the office’s hearing room and a new policy introduced by suspended Commissioner Michael Riches not to force people suspected of corruption to provide evidence, citing concerns for their mental health.

The glaring output failures of the office were detailed in another confusing and contradictory report tabled in Parliament late Thursday night by ICAC Inspector Bruce McClintock, who wrote in one paragraph that the performance of the OICAC “has been satisfactory” and in the next paragraph that “I do not evaluate the performance of the OICAC as satisfactory”.

“I note three significant KPIs were not met,” he wrote, which included not meeting targets on the number of investigations being completed within six months, investigations not being completed within 12 months and reports back to the ICAC not being responded to within 10 days.

Most alarmingly, Mr Riches had set a target of 80 per cent of “examinations” – or interviews with witnesses – being completed within one month of lawyers receiving the brief, but failed to conduct any examinations over the entire 12-month reporting period before he was suspended.

“Such examinations are a tool of investigators and it is surprising that none occurred,” Mr McClintock wrote.

Mr Riches was suspended from the role in late June – the end of the financial year and the reporting period – following serious allegations of inappropriate behaviour by “several” female staff members. Mr Riches has denied the allegations and there is no time frame for when the investigation being carried out by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Employment will be completed.

Naomi Loudon has been in the acting role since Mr Riches’ suspension, while Mr Riches remains on full salary of $500,000.

But Mr McClintock said Mr Riches should not be blamed for the office’s failings and neither should Ms Loudon or anyone else in the Office of the ICAC.

“In my evaluation, all OICAC [officers] and staff members have worked hard to advance the aims of the agency in what have been unquestionably difficult circumstances,” he wrote.

Mr McClintock added the difficulties experienced by the agency “appeared” to him to be an inability to recruit “sufficient staff to perform its functions adequately”, stating the department had 21.2 full-time equivalent staff against a budgeted FTE of 28. He did not explain how they ran a deficit of $396,000 for the year with seven positions remaining unfilled.

Mr McClintock also wrote that the agency only had an FTE of 16 now, compared to the budgeted 28, but that “no blame can be laid at the feet of the Independent Commissioner or the Acting Independent Commissioner who have made considerable efforts to recruit staff”.

He added Mr Riches’ extended suspension was adding to the agency’s lack of output.

“In addition, the absence on leave of the Independent Commissioner has itself had an impact on the output of the agency because it has prevented completion of a number of significant reports and items of work,” he wrote.

High-level sources with knowledge of the internal workings of the OICAC have previously told the NT Independent that Mr Riches micro-managed the office and conducted major investigations alone, leaving investigation staff to fulfil other duties.

This was highlighted when the second part of Operation Jupiter – the investigation into allegations Labor politicians and staffers misused public money for campaign purposes – was not completed by June 30 as Mr Riches had indicated and has since been referred by Ms Loudon, who has a conflict of interest in the matter, to an unnamed retired judge in another jurisdiction for completion.

Mr McClintock made no mention of any of that in his annual report, but indicated morale was poor in the office generally.

“Staff morale and job satisfaction have been low for some time and continue to be so,” he wrote. “There are a number of causes such as the disruption resulting from [Mr Riches’] leave and the events leading up to it. This itself has been responsible for difficulties in retaining staff.”

He concluded the section on the reasons for the office’s problems with the cryptic line: “I suspect that there are other difficulties confronting the OICAC, but I am not in a position to assess them”.

Acting Commissioner Naomi Loudon responded to Mr McClintock’s report, stating that the agency’s hearing room had undergone renovations for three months in late 2023, which she claimed meant the “entire staff [had] to relocate to another premises” and were therefore unable to conduct interviews with corruption suspects and other witnesses.

It was not explained why the $600,000 renovations were needed when the entire office was completely refurbished for $2 million in 2019.

Ms Loudon also offered another explanation as to why nobody was interviewed during the entire financial year.

“Commissioner Riches was focused on the voluntary provision of material and building collaborative relationships through co-operation,” she wrote.

“The Office has been mindful of witness welfare, as it is a topic amongst integrity and anti-corruption commissions nationally. The mental health of witnesses and the stressful nature of giving evidence at a compulsory examination were considerations and Commissioner Riches determined that in some circumstances, it is more appropriate to strike the balance between effectively obtaining evidentiary material and witness welfare, by using methods other than compulsory examinations.”

She did not explain what those methods were, but the annual report shows no new surveillance was conducted during the financial year and no search warrants issued. Despite this, Ms Loudon claimed in the annual report that 15 investigations had somehow been finalised.

Mr Riches’ methods have led to no public findings of corruption against anyone in more than three years, amid continual declines in meeting modest KPIs annually.

Despite the failings and dysfunction in the Office of the ICAC, Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro has refused to hold an inquiry into the matter – or take any action on the OICAC – releasing a statement on Thursday night acknowledging the problems outlined by Mr McClintock and stating the OCPE’s investigation into Mr Riches is continuing.

“I am conscious of the impact this issue continues to have on the staff of the office of the ICAC and the broader standing of the office in the community,” she said.

“Naomi Loudon remains Acting Independent Commissioner Against Corruption.”

The Office of the ICAC cost taxpayers $6 million to operate in 2023-24, with staff salary making up $4.1 million.