Dear Editor,

I write with reference to your article, entitled "No evidence linking Moore, Wedderburn to corruption, DPP tells Christie", which is published in the Sunday Observer newspaper (September 25).

Under a photograph of me, which appears in your article, you have seen it fit to utilise the following caption: "CHRISTIE ... had alleged corruption in LNG Project".

The latter statement is not only a false and libellous statement that has been disingenuously attributed by the Jamaica Observer to me and to my commission, since no where in the Office of the Contractor General's (OCG's) 609-page LNG Investigation Report has any such allegation, charge or assertion been made by the OCG, but the clear and obvious intent of your mischief, when both the title of your article and the caption of the photograph are juxtaposed, is to create the false public perception that the OCG and I have capriciously pinned a criminal charge onto the shoulders of two up-standing Jamaicans, and the learned Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has, once again, found no justification for it.

To further compound and underscore your seeming calculated mischief, and the abuse of your journalistic privileges, the lead paragraph to your article, which contains a verbatim reproduction of all 19 pages of the DPP's letter to me of September 20, 2011, repeats the libel and trumpets as follows: "Contractor General Greg Christie has accused the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) of arriving at a premature conclusion in its investigation of his allegations of corruption in the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) matter".

However, and not surprisingly, no where in your article have you seen it fit to inform the public of the reasons why the OCG has characterised the DPP's ruling as "premature". This is despite the fact that the referenced reasons were expressly set out in unequivocal terms in the OCG's media release of September 22, 2011, electronic copies of which were received by several editors and journalists at the Jamaica Observer.

Your article has, therefore, quite skilfully, but surreptitiously, manufactured, and conveyed to an unsuspecting public, what the Jamaica Observer would obviously like to be its own twisted version of the facts in this matter — a matter which, undoubtedly, is of significant national import.

The incontrovertible facts of the matter, as you are well aware, are that the OCG's referral of May 17, 2011, to the DPP and to the Commissioner of Police, makes no allegation or finding whatsoever of corruption on the part of anyone. What the DPP and the Commissioner of Police were specifically asked by the OCG to do, was to "undertake further investigations" to determine if that was indeed the case.

Specifically, both the Commissioner of Police and the learned DPP were asked to:

"Undertake such further investigations as they may deem to be appropriate, into the actions of Mr Ian Moore, Mr Stephen Wedderburn and Mr Conrad Kerr with respect to the multiple irregularities and improprieties which have been identified by the OCG during the course of its investigation and which have been documented herein.

In particular, the matter is being referred to the Commissioner of Police and the DPP for them to determine whether Mr Ian Moore and/or Mr Stephen Wedderburn used their respective public offices in a conspiratory, fraudulent, corrupt, clandestine and/or surreptitious manner to ensure a future illicit benefit for themselves, Caribbean LNG (Jamaica) Ltd and/or the Exmar Consortium through, inter alia, the irregular utilisation of proprietary insider information and/or through the exhibition of a bias or preferential treatment towards Exmar Marine NV, in the referenced tender process for the 'FSRU LNG Project'.

The investigations should, among other things, specifically seek to determine whether there was a conspiracy or agreement between Mr Ian Moore and/or Mr Stephen Wedderburn and/or any or all of the named persons to facilitate, inter alia, what could be the possible commission, on the part of any and/or all of them, of an act or acts of corruption, contrary to Section 14 of the Corruption Prevention Act, or to otherwise determine if Mr Ian Moore and/or Mr Stephen Wedderburn and/or any or all of the named persons may have committed or aided and abetted an act or acts of corruption or other criminal offence".

You are also aware that to further emphasise the legitimacy of the OCG's referral-recommendation in the matter, I made public, on September 22, 2011, the fact that on May 27, 2011, I conveyed to the Commissioner of Police, what I considered "to be highly confidential information... which had a direct and material bearing upon certain matters that had been raised in the OCG's FSRU-LNG investigation report, and had unquestionably strengthened the justification for the referral that had been made by the OCG for a criminal investigation to be undertaken in the matter".

I further stated that "the specifics of the information that was relayed to the Commissioner was of such a sensitive and pivotal nature that it could not be made public at that time and still cannot be made public at this time and that the Commissioner would be aware of this".

I also stated "that the source from which the subject information had been derived by the OCG was identified to the Commissioner and was such that it was anticipated that the information would have been accorded significant and pre-eminent weight".

The Commissioner of Police is acutely aware of the gravity of what was communicated to him by me and precisely what that portends for the decision that the DPP has arrived at, in the absence of her not having had the benefit of the outcome of the referenced criminal investigations that were recommended by the OCG.

It was against the above-referenced background, and within that perspective, and that perspective solely, that my comment about the DPP's ruling being "premature" was made.

Indeed, the following were my specific concluding comments on the issue — comments which you have, regrettably, seen it fit to suppress although they were brought directly to your attention:

"The OCG can also assert that, to the best of its knowledge, the referenced information that was conveyed to the Commissioner, as at the date of this statement, is information which (a) is still current, credible, actionable and material to certain issues that have been raised in the OCG's FSRU-LNG investigation report; (b) justifies that the recommended criminal investigation should be pursued by local law enforcement authorities; and (c) suggests that, given the gravity of, and the implications that have been raised by, the subject information, the opinion of the ODPP is, at best, having regard to all of the circumstances of the case, pre-mature".

"The OCG is also concerned that despite the fact that the ODPP, in its letter to the OCG, has conceded that the FSRU-LNG tender process was mired in irregularity and has raised several unanswered questions, the ODPP did not, however, see it fit to secure an independent criminal investigation, as was recommended, into the underlying reasons or causes for the said irregularities and unanswered questions, before 'closing the case".

The latter point needs no elaboration, as anyone who has dispassionately read the learned DPP's letter, as was published by you in its entirety today, would have realised.

The OCG has taken specific note of the apparent persistent attempts, by the Jamaica Observer, to trample on the boundaries of good journalistic ethical conduct, in a seeming effort to unfairly malign and/or to negatively twist, in the public's eye, stories which are related to the OCG and to me in my capacity as the holder of the commission of the Contractor General of Jamaica.

Two such instances were recently brought to public light via OCG media releases that were dated June 8, 2011 — "OCG disassociates Itself from false claim made by the Observer newspaper on the LNG matter — reiterates positions outlined in investigation report", and June 20, 2011 — "OCG moves to correct false inferences made in Sunday Observer about disappearance of witness in KSAC matter and to clarify its positions".

The OCG, Sir, views the continuing conduct of the Jamaica Observer, in the foregoing regard, with unmitigated disdain. As has been aptly said elsewhere, as a newspaper you are entitled to your opinions. However, you are not entitled to your own facts.

I have no doubt that, having regard to the extremely grave issues that have been introduced into the public sphere by your publication, you will be inclined to do the right thing by publishing my letter in its entirety.

Greg Christie

Contractor General

  0 comments

  2 comments

  0 comments

  0 comments

  0 comments

  0 comments

  1 comments

  0 comments

  3 comments

  2 comments

  0 comments

  0 comments

  0 comments

  0 comments

  0 comments

  2 comments

  0 comments

  0 comments

  1 comments

  0 comments