THE GOVERNMENT has revealed that it will be providing preferential treatment to local contractors during the next round of bids for the annual Primary School Textbook Programme.
"In relation to the provision of textbooks for the academic year 2004/2005, the Government has granted a margin of preference of 7.5 per cent on bids submitted by local contractors," Burchell Whiteman, Leader of Government Business in the Senate said yesterday.
He was responding to questions previously raised by Senator Anthony Johnson, Leader of Opposition Business.
Senator Johnson had asked whether any effort had been made to ensure the capabilities of the local printers, after the Government argued that past deficiencies in local service had prompted last year's contract award to overseas company Von Hoffman Corporation.
Senator Whiteman who is also Minister of Information, noted that the Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture was unable to ensure that the local printing industry would in the future be better prepared to print large numbers of books.
He revealed that the Government had completed its $51.6 million payment to the firm for the delivery of 2.2 million textbooks to local primary schools at the start of the current school year.
ADDITIONAL PAYMENTS
He said no additional payments had been made to Von Hoffman, after the company requested the Government pay more than the contracted sum.
"There has been no settlement in this regard. The Ministry is awaiting advice from the Solicitor-General," he said.
In October Senator Whiteman revealed that Von Hoffman had requested what would later be revealed to be $11 million more than contracted for providing the books under the 2003/2004 programme. The company had cited the devaluation of the Jamaican dollar in justifying the claim.
The threat of such an increase was one of many concerns raised by local entities, including the Gleaner Company Ltd., that lost out in the contract bid.
Reacting after the disclosure was made at a November sitting of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee, Oliver Clarke, chairman and managing director of the Gleaner Company, said: "We thought that this was a fixed price contract. The Gleaner would not have expected any further payment over and above its quotation."
Opposition Senator, Bruce Golding, had also queried the Government's consideration of the request, suggesting that an adjustment to a fixed-price contract would set a 'definite precedent' on which other companies would act in the future.
R.H.
