By Robert Hart, Staff ReporterVON HOFFMANN Corporation, the overseas company contracted to print and distribute primary level textbooks for the 2003/2004 school year, is seeking an additional $11 million from the Government for the job.
Speaking during yesterday's sitting of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Margueritte Bowie, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture, said Von Hoffmann based the request on the depreciation of the Jamaican dollar.
Pressed by committee chairman Audley Shaw, the Permanent Secretary said "a decision has not yet been taken" on whether the sum would be paid.
"We wrote to the Contractor-General, setting out the circumstances and asking for advice," Ms. Bowie told the committee.
Mr. Shaw commented that he could not understand Government's consideration of the matter as the job was awarded to Von Hoffmann under a 'fixed-price' contract and included a 'no-escalation clause'.
"A contract is a contract. I don't even know why it's going to the Contractor-General," he said.
Ms. Bowie explained that because of the substantial public interest in the issue, "we are just taking an abundance of caution."
She noted, however, that the final decision was not in the hands of the Contractor-General.
The original contract was approved at $51 million by Cabinet. Von Hoffmann beat out its closest competitor, The Gleaner Company Ltd. by $3 million, to become the first overseas company to take on the textbook project since its start in the 1980s.
Oliver Clarke, chairman and managing director of the Gleaner Company, reacting to the disclosure at the PAC meeting said: "We thought that this was a fixed price contract. The Gleaner would not have expected any further payment over and above its quotation."
The Government has repeatedly blamed inefficiencies within local entities for its decision to give the job to a foreign firm.
AFFECTED 200 JOBS
Lashing out against the move, Senators Bruce Golding and Anthony Johnson, the Opposition spokesman on education, have claimed the awarding of the textbook contract to a foreign agency has affected 200 jobs within the local printing industry. According to the Senators, those persons would have benefited from sub-contracted work. The Government had also been warned that, despite the provision of a fixed price (in Jamaican dollars), the risk was being run of facing the very request now on the table.
But yesterday, PAC member Delroy Chuck questioned whether Von Hoffmann may have knowingly put in a bid that it would later adjust.
Commenting on the $11 million, he asked: "Does that have to do with devaluation or a low bid to get the contract and therefore the sum is greater than what would normally be expected?"
Despite the contentious issue Von Hoffmann has, according to Ms. Bowie, completed the distribution of books to schools.
