Contractor General Greg Christie. - File
Contractor General Greg Christie submitted copies of the 22nd Annual Report of the Contractor General for calendar year 2008 to both Houses of Parliament by letter dated August 24, 2009.
The report has been duly tabled but to date there has been no notice taken by the Parliament of the recommendations/requests made by the contractor general, so no one knows whether any of the 60 members of parliament or the 20 members of the Senate have taken the time to read even the 21 pages of remarks at the beginning of the 570-page report.
On Page 18, Christie felt constrained to repeat comments he had made the previous year:
"It would be remiss of me, however, if I did not place upon record the OCG's continued disappointment regarding the unacceptable levels of attention which the Government and Parliament of Jamaica continue to pay to the considered recommendations of the OCG, most of which are typically communicated in (a) official OCG correspondence, (b) OCG investigation reports and (c) OCG annual reports," he said.
"Several of these recommendations, whether made in 2007 or before, or by myself, or by other contractor generals, have, again, for another year gone wholly unheeded. Regrettably, I must, again, reiterate the same observations in respect of [2008]. Substantially, nothing has changed. The great majority of the several recommendations which were made by the OCG during 2008 - together with those which have been made repeatedly by me over the preceding two and a half years - have, for the most part, gathered dust. In substance, they have garnered neither the attention of the executive nor that of the Parliament, on whose behalf a contractor general is mandated to act."
That is a most telling statement. And it speaks to the ambivalence of both sides of the political divide, as well as the public sector, for the need to respond to the findings of the investigations of the Office of Contractor General.
Transitioning problems
The report highlighted six challenges that the OCG faces in trying to carry out its mandate.
The first was problems that have emerged in transitioning from the government procure-ment procedures handbook to statutory regulations in respect of government procurements. Prior to the changeover, there was a shift in government procurement procedures exempting certain public bodies from the application of the GOJ procurement procedures for certain specified categories of procurement.
The hasty roll-out of the new statutory regime, which was done without the benefit of an extensive public education/training programme, has created "significant confusion and uncertainty among public bodies and public officers alike." Further, the OCG points to "substantive inconsistencies, anomalies and contextual contradictions" in the revised handbook, and as such in the OCG's view it should not be used in its current form for regulating the public sector procurement process.
The OCG submits that the "paltry" criminal sanctions imposed by Section 40 of the new 2008 Public Sector Procurement Regulations have made a mockery of the highly publicised attempts by the state to deal effectively with serious breaches of its procurement guidelines.
Second, regarding jurisdiction of the OCG to scrutinise transactions involving divestment of state assets, Christie recommends that Parliament consider as a matter of priority revising Section 2 of the Contractor General Act "to impose a revised definition of 'government contract to explicitly include contracts for the public acquisition of lands, and contracts for the divestment of publicly owned assets, inclusive of land."
Immediate steps
Third, on regulations governing offshore incorporated private companies receiving GOJ con-tracts, Christie urges Cabinet to take immediate steps to amend the government procurement rules to require that "any private corporate entity that is desirous of tendering on any GOJ contract, must, as a mandatory prerequisite, submit to the relevant contracting public body, certified and sworn particulars of its incorporation documents, certified particulars of its shareholders and certified particulars of all its beneficial shareholders."
Fourth, cost overruns on government works contracts, which during 2008 occurred on 46 of 235 works contracts monitored by the OCG, amounting to additional $3.14 billion. These cost overruns were 16 per cent of the total works contracts endorsed by the National Contracts Com-mission (NCC) in 2008.
A fifth challenge is non-performing contractors on the approved NCC lists and the continuing problem of unregistered contractors - a recurring decimal, with a recommendation for the permanent secretaries group to take a uniform approach in monitoring the performance of contractors on their projects and routinely submit the data to the NCC for entry into an NCC/OCG database.
The data can then be utilised by the NCC when reviewing annual applications for renewal of registrations.
Sixth was a plea for con-sideration of new advertising options for publishing government procurement opportunities, an 'e-procurement notice board' for advertising all government contract opportunities.
All six issues are worthy of the immediate attention of the Parliament and the appropriate action taken if lawmakers are serious about getting a handle on corruption in government procurement procedures.
renee.shirley@yahoo.com