MINISTERIAL ACCOUNTABILITY and responsibility is one of the basic principles of the Westminster form of government. It is clearly a principle that Minister Phillip Paulwell does not grasp based on his statement in Parliament on Tuesday on the NetServ affair. Much the same can be said of his Cabinet colleagues who endorsed the Minister's statement.
The statement is a chronicle of the breaching of established procedures, of communications failures and of gross mismanagement of a fund, which held out the promise of providing jobs for 40,000 young people. Mr. Paulwell cannot take refuge in the claim that he did not know what was happening and that in his zeal he may have sought to imbue his colleagues with a sense of urgency which may have caused them to be less cautious than they should have been.
What transpired ought not to have happened. Vast sums of money, $180 million in low-cost loans and a grant of US$500,000, were provided to NetServ, a company whose principal had been the subject of a very damning credit report. The credit report was in the hands of persons in the government system even before all the funds were paid out, yet further payments were made. Matching funds which the company was to provide as its part of the overall investment were not forthcoming and the company has now collapsed leaving the Government with very little to hold onto.
As we have said before Minister Paulwell should resign. There are others who played important roles in this sorry and sordid affair who should be dismissed from the positions that they now hold for displaying very poor judgment in the management of public funds.
We find it incomprehensible that the president of the National Investment Bank of Jamaica (NIBJ), Mr. Rex James was prepared to claim that a KPMG report on Mr. Paul Pereira was "biased", a report which provided details of what it claimed was Mr. Pereira's "ability to extract money from people without a willingness to repay". And even with the knowledge of that report further funds were paid out to the company.
How these funds were administered provides a textbook case of how not to do it. Those responsible for this gross mismanagement must be held accountable and must pay the price for what they have done or failed to do.
The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner.
