Tyrone Reid, Staff Reporter
THE GOVERNMENT hustled last night to name its five appointees to the National Contracts Commission (NCC), after Contractor General Greg Christie charged that delays had hamstrung the work of the NCC and would cost taxpayers millions of dollars.
The Office of the Contractor General reported last night that the Government, through the Governor-General, had appointed Robert Martin, Jean Fairclough, Milton Hodelin, Karl Martin and Donald Moore to join Shirley Tyndall who was last month appointed as chairman of the commission.
With a quorum of five, and with six members now named, the NCC can now get on with its work until the two nominees from the construction sector and the professional groups are named.
Mr. Christie's office said the instruments of appointment for the new members of the NCC carried yesterday's date, less than 24 hours after he had issued a statement slamming the Portia Simpson Miller administration for not naming those members of the commission it is empowered to choose.
The delay, Mr. Christie complained, had caused his office to put on hold the registration or re-registration of more than 70 contractors, a requirement for them to bid on Government contracts. Additionally, there was a pile-up of more than 30 contracts, valued at $4 million or above, which the NCC is mandated to scrutinise.
GOVERNMENT TARDINESS
Mr. Christie, in his Monday night statement, warned of economic and other implications of the Government's tardiness.
"It would appear that the full impact of what is already a crisis situation which is prevailing in the country's public sector procurement system has not yet been grasped by the Government," Mr. Christie said. "In the final analysis, the taxpayers of the country will be made to pay." Mr. Christie came to the job late last year after the seven-year stint of Derrick McKoy and immediately promised transparency and activism in an effort to bring greater efficiency to the Government's procurement system and to eliminate waste. Among his earliest initiatives was an agreement with then Prime Minister P.J. Patterson for the Office of the Contractor General to review and list contracts as low as $4 million.
Earlier this year, Mr. Christie also issued a letter demanding that details of all contracts under $4 million be forwarded to the Office of the Contractor General.
Previously thousands of contracts under the $4 million threshold, and not requiring the endorsement of the NCC, escaped independent scrutiny as there was no mechanism in place to enforce mandatory review. This, critics have said, provided a loophole for officials to skirt the regulations and steer Government cash to political cronies.
More than a week, Government spokesman and Information Minister, Colin Campbell, had told reporters that the Government had identified that the names of the Government's nominees to the NCC had been approved by the Cabinet, but until yesterday no appointments were made, a situation that concerned Mr. Christie and sparked his surprising public protest.
"From as early as March 10, a full two months prior to the impending expiry of the tenure of the then panel of the NCC on May 16, 2006, I wrote to the Cabinet Secretary urging Cabinet to move with dispatch to ensure that a new panel would be appointed in good time to take office on May 17," Mr. Christie disclosed in his statement.
Christie yesterday received support from Shadow Finance Minister, Audley Shaw, for his public chiding of the Government.
Speaking before the naming of the administration's five appointees to the NCC, Shaw warned the Government to desist from its "fiddling around" with the appointments, saying it should move swiftly.
The delay, Shaw said, was "inexcusable and (was) a gross dereliction of duty, which has resulted in the paralysis of a critical oversight body".
