UFC ref gig in Vegas costs Manitoba civil servant interim title
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/04/2021 (1943 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
A senior Manitoba civil servant has been disciplined for failing to comply with a government directive against non-essential travel.
Jerin Valel, the province’s director of technology transformation, travelled to Las Vegas in March to referee at a Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed martial arts event.
In February, Premier Brian Pallister issued a directive barring government appointees from travelling “for leisure purposes outside permitted areas.”
It came on the heels of reports the then-chairman of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority board of directors travelled to Arizona at a time in which such trips were being discouraged by public health officials amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to a CBC report, Valel had recently been hired as interim assistant deputy minister of transformation in early March, but was moved back to his former position as the province’s director of technology transformation after the premier learned of his U.S. travel.
Pallister’s director of media relations, Blake Robert, said in an email to the Free Press the premier was unaware of Valel’s travels.
Robert did not say how the government learned of the civil servant’s moonlighting trip to the U.S.
“This individual’s travel to the United States should not have continued after the directive regarding non-essential travel for government of Manitoba employees was issued,” Robert said.
“Although the travel occurred within the recognized public health protocols of a professional sports bubble and did meet cross-border public health rules, it was contrary to the intent of the province’s travel directive.”
He said Valel, whom he did not mention by name, has “confirmed” he will not travel out of province until the government directive on non-essential travel is lifted.
Valel joined the civil service in March 2020, at a starting salary of $146,690. Previously, he spent 2 1/2 years with Winnipeg digital school-form company Permission Click, and 9 1/2 years at Bell MTS, where he rose to the position of director of digital.
A former professional mixed martial arts fighter, Valel has taught MMA courses and refereed fights all over the world, according to one online biography.
A message to Valel seeking comment Wednesday was not immediately returned.
The directive against non-essential travel followed reports the province’s top civil servant worked from his Ottawa home over the Christmas holidays, a senior political staffer vacationed in Eastern Canada over the same period, and a backbench government MLA and his family took a holiday driving trip to British Columbia.
larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca