MONTREAL — Quebec Premier Jean Charest has lost faith in SODEC’s top executive following a report that revealed the cultural mandarin’s tendency to spend like he was on a luxury holiday while on the job.

The ‘value-for-money’ report released recently by Quebec Auditor General Renaud Lachance paints a portrait of SODEC president Jean-Guy Chaput as an irresponsible jet-setter who, along with employees under his watch, feasts at the best restaurants and stays at the finest hotels at public expense.

Lachance says employees of the Quebec funding agency are overspending and not being properly monitored while they do it. The auditor looked at the activities of SODEC’s top executives and its European commissariat in Paris; and found that expense reports often didn’t contain receipts, including one for $80,000, justified simply as ‘restaurant services.’

The commissariat’s work focuses mainly on the Cannes film festival and an annual event promoting Quebec film.

Just back from the latest edition of Cannes — where he stayed in a $1,300 room with a waterfront view — a defiant Chaput told Radio-Canada that he had done nothing wrong. ‘I have not committed fraud,’ said the executive. ‘I stay in that room because that’s the deal we have worked out.’

But the province’s premier indicated he won’t renew Chaput’s contract, which is up in October, telling reporters, ‘With these findings it will be very difficult for him to continue in his job.’

The report also found that the overall cost of Quebec’s presence at Cannes has risen since Chaput began his job in 2004. SODEC’s travel and accommodation expenses at Cannes rose from $35,260 in 2006/07 to $64,694 in 2008/09.

The total SODEC budget for the 2009 Cannes edition, which ended Sunday, is $262,206. That includes renting seven hotel rooms, each costing $680 to $1,330 a night. In 2008, the government paid for eight rooms, ranging from $590 to $1,010 per night.

Lachance also found that the cost of several plane trips made by Chaput was higher, occasionally even twice as high, as that paid by individuals travelling during the same period to take part in the same event.

It was the chair of SODEC’s board who asked the auditor general to take a close look at the funding agency’s expenses overseas.