Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter
WALKER
PARLIAMENT'S PUBLIC Accounts Committee (PAC) criticised the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ), on Tuesday, for not exercising financial prudence in its decision to conduct further valuations on a property.
The PAC took issue with three additional valuations done on the property by the EOJ, despite an earlier one conducted by the National Land Agency (NLA).
The EOJ had spent more than $600,000 on the valuations when it tried to establish a permanent Election Centre on properties owned by Jamaica Broilers on Hope Road in Kingston.
SOLD TO ANOTHER BUYER
Despite these expenditures, the premises were sold to another buyer. But Director of Elections, Danville Walker, defended the decision by the EOJ to do three valuations instead of one.
"They (Jamaica Broilers) had a price and we thought that the price was high," he said. "You need a basis to say that the price should be less than that and that is why you need a valuation."
Mr. Walker said that the NLA valuation was lower than the asking price.
"So we sought to get two valuations from the private sector to give us some support to make a credible offer," he said. "By the time this was all done, another purchaser bought the place."
But PAC chairman Audley Shaw was strongly opposed to the EOJ's decision.
"I don't see where it ought to be a proper precedence that a Government agency ought to be getting three valuations inclusive of the land agency's. I think that we ought to get one," he said.
However Robert Martin, deputy financial secretary for Public Expenditure and Policy Coordination in the Finance Ministry, said the decision was not unusual.
He informed the PAC that the procedure regarding valuations required the NLA to conduct an initial valuation while a second could be sought from a private valuator.
IMPRUDENT MOVE
But Auditor General Adrian Strachan insisted that this was not a prudent move.
Mr. Strachan thought it was inappropriate for an agency to spend so much in pursuit of a transaction which ultimately fell through.
He said the NLA was needed to provide a ballpark within which to operate, and that two private valuations would pass on "unfortunate judgement" onto the NLA.
"In other words, are we saying when the land agency comes up with valuations, it bears no resemblance to market realities?" he asked.
Mr. Strachan said he would be taking up the matter with the NLA.
