Yesterday, the PNP charged that Golding's motivation for the land purchase was to rescue the Hydel Group of Schools, which is owned by government Senator Hyacinth Bennett.

This runs counter to Golding's claim that the purchase of the land was in keeping with the medium- to long-term development plan of the entire Ferry corridor.

"We envisage that, in the very near future, King-ston and Spanish Town, along with Portmore, will become one huge metropolis," Golding said in Parliament last week as he sought to justify what the Opposition has called a scandalous purchase.

The Urban Development Corpo-ration (UDC) purchased the six-and-a-half-acre property at Ferry, where Bennett's group of schools sits, for $168.7 million.

Bennett had leased the lands to put up the schools. However, the land was offered for sale and UDC bought the lands despite warning by its internal department that it was not in the best interest of the corporation.

Lease proposal

The UDC is currently working on a lease pro-posal which would enable the schools to remain on the property.

"They stood to lose a lot. Tens of million if this property was sold on the open market," the party's general secretary, Peter Bunting, said at a press conference held at its Old Hope Road headquarters yesterday.

Bunting, a former investment banker, said Hydel would not have been able to recover the value of the buildings that it has erected on the site.

Yesterday, the PNP issued a document which it claimed was prepared by the Development Bank of Jamaica (DBJ).

The report speaks to a meeting at the Office of the Prime Minister on March 17 to "examine the business plan submitted by Hydel and provide an independent and thorough appraisal of the same."

Survival of school

At press time yesterday, the DBJ had not responded to queries as to whether it authored the document.

Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller scoffed at claims made in Parliament by Golding and pointed to an internal UDC document, which she said supports the Opposition's claim that the purchase was mainly to ensure the survival of the schools operated by the JLP senator.

The purported UDC document also said that it was better for Government to build a new school in the area than to purchase the land at that cost.

"Come clear, come clean and tell the people the truth," Simpson Miller charged Golding.

The PNP has called for the contractor general to investigate.

"This misuse of public funds is unacceptable, especially in a climate where businesses are struggling to finance their operations; it is an abuse of public resources for the State's funds to be used in this way," Simpson Miller said.

daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com

UDC REPORT

"The underlying premise for purchasing the property is the threat of closure of the school as the site is being offered for sale."