Tyrone Reid, Enterprise Reporter
Christie
In a caustic and comprehensive review of the public sector's contract awards process for the year 2005, a dissatisfied Contractor General Greg Christie called for punitive sanctions to be taken against individuals who breach the Government's procurement guidelines.
Mr. Christie, who has been spearheading an aggressive campaign for transparency in the awards process since beginning his tenure in December 2005, recommended that the current protocol be overhauled and upgraded to mandatory regulations. He insisted that the required procedures must have teeth.
"These regulations must carry with them the force of the law, with prescribed penalties to be imposed in the event of their breach."
This call comes against what he sees as the perennial defiance of the established procurement procedures.
In the eight-page introductory remarks of the 19th Annual Report of the Contractor General, the watchdog of the country's contract awards process highlighted that, while there have been significant improvements in the adherence to protocol, some Government entities persistently defy the rules.
BREACHES COULD CONTINUE
In the 380-page report, which was tabled in Parliament yesterday, Mr. Christie said he was convinced that the breaches would continue if penalties were not put in place.
"This should come as no surprise. As long as Government's established procurement procedures remain procedures with no punitive sanctions associated with their breach, the violation of these rules will persist," he declared.
Mr. Christie also revealed that improper planning and a lack of proper project management are resulting in public sector waste.
"Too much of the taxpayers' money is being
wasted in consequence of these recurring issues," he said. "The management and supervision of construction works sites have not improved and continue to be costly to the Government in terms of time and money."
Additionally, the Contractor General highlighted what he deemed an "overwhelming tendency" among public sector entities to lean towards the use of the Sole Source and Limited Tender methods of procurement.
Additionally, as it relates to the monitoring of non-construction contracts, licences, permits and concessions, Mr. Christie pointed out that there was a "growing trend among some public bodies that refuse to cooperate with the Office of the Contractor General."
Mr. Christie lamented that, despite being empowered by law to gain access to public offices, persons, premises, records, documents and information, his administration faced outright defiance from a number of public sector entities when carrying out its monitoring and investigative functions.
"For instance, one such entity, the Bureau of Standards (BOS), which denied OC-G officers entry to the BOS premises during the process of monitoring its procurement activities (and) the matter was resolved as a result of intervention by the Permanent Secretary," Mr. Christie said.
With the mega Urban Development Corporation (UDC) scandal, which wracked up $2 billion in cost overruns on the Sandals Whitehouse hotel construction project in Westmoreland, still on the front burner, the Contractor General said that "delays in payments to contractors and tardy performance of many contractors have contributed significantly to the excessive time overrun experienced on many of the contracts/projects implemented by the Government of Jamaica."
While admitting that the dreaded overruns are often inevitable, Mr. Christie categorically stated that the monitoring exercises conducted by his office "indicates that most of the significant overruns are as a result of unsatisfactory performance, absence of a proper work methodology, inadequate supervision, and the lack of the required financial resources by both contractor and client".
