CONTRACTOR General Greg Christie has recommended that the Government immediately scrap the current tender process for its Floating Station, Regasification Unit Liquefied Natural Gas project, commonly known as the LNG project.

Christie, who made the recommendation in a 609-page report presented to Parliament yesterday, alleged that there may have been conspiracy on the part of several individuals to benefit illicitly from the deal struck with "preferred bidder" — Exmar Consortium — to supply LNG via a storage and regasification floating facility last year.

Christie named former chairman of the board of directors of the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) Ian Moore and former LNG project co-ordinator for the PCJ Stephen Wedderburn, who are tied to Caribbean LNG (Jamaica), which is part of the Exmar Consortium, saying he was leaving it to the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) and the commissioner of police to determine whether Moore and/or Wedderburn "used their offices in a conspiratory, fraudulent, corrupt, clandestine and or surreptitious manner to ensure a future illicit benefit for themselves".

At the same time, Christie recommended that the DPP and the commissioner undertake further investigations into the actions of Moore, Wedderburn and Conrad Kerr with respect to alleged "multiple irregularities and improprieties" identified by his office in the course of the investigations which formally began in September last year.

But yesterday, Moore, who owns 31.2 per cent of Caribbean LNG, in responding to the OCG report, said there had been nothing untoward or biased about the process.

"I welcomed from the beginning any and every investigation and it has now gone through a year of investigation by the OCG and is now being referred to another body. I am willing to co-operate with that body and any body that comes along," Moore told the Observer.

He also discounted the conspiracy theory alleged by the contractor general.

"I recognised that Jamaica was in serious trouble as it relates to energy before I embarked on the project, and what would have to have happened for him to talk about me doing it for a future benefit I would have to have known that I was gonna get fired. I would have to have known that seven months after I was fired the prime minister would have chosen LNG. I would have to have known that a year after I got fired this would have come out. If I had known all of these things I would be using my talent for different things, maybe predicting the lottery," he told the Observer.

"I don't understand this 'future illicit benefit' when you go out there and you push for change in your country and people try to vilify you, that is the hurtful side to me, to tell me that two years ago I would have known these things," he added.

"I would have to have conspired with Minister Mullings to fire me and then the prime minister to finally settle the debate between coal versus natural gas," he said.

According to Moore, he was in no way denying that the company was set up purely to bring LNG to Jamaica, but he insisted that there was no clandestine intention to strike a deal with Exmar and ignore other bidders.

"The prime minister announced publicly in May last year that the country has finally decided on LNG. One month later I set up Caribbean LNG. Why? Because the prime minister just announced it. The PCJ has never embarked upon a study on Floating Stations, Regasification Units (FSRU). I did a prefeasibility study in July on FSRUs," Moore insisted.

"His facts are great. It's the conclusions that are not really in line with the facts. I went out and did the study, it's well documented they never ever did so, so what information then would I have?" he asked. "This is a technical field, an engineering field, our document is over 4,000 pages long, if you find one page in there that belongs to any other entity you come with the police and cart me off to jail."

He pointed out that Exmar's involvement with Jamaica predated him.

"Exmar has been in Jamaica since 2001; Exmar signed an MOU with the previous Government in 2006, so their contact and involvement in Jamaica has been long before my time. I met with anybody who made representation to try and help this country diversify from fuel, I never rejected anybody, that was my job as chairman to listen to everyone who brought a solution, not only in LNG but in wind, hydro, bio-mass, bio-fuels," he contended.

"The fact that one prospecting company comes to Jamaica more often than the next that's not for me to judge, but what he must look at is, have I refused to entertain anybody that brought a proposal to Jamaica?" Moore said, adding that Exmar in 2007, before his tenure, started to invest in the Caribbean Maritime Institute.

"They sponsor the institution, they have hired about 25 Jamaicans who are working on LNG ships around the world for Exmar. How again are you going to penalise a company for prospecting on a country, getting socially involved in a company, tell me how I, as chairman, have breached because one company comes to Jamaica 10 times and another comes two?" he asked.

In the meantime, Moore said while the contractor general is protected by law and action cannot be taken against him directly, there was likely to be some 'spin-offs'.

"What is certain is that the consortium members who are likely to be injured in this regard, it's sure that they are looking at everything from what they have spent so far to damages relating to stock prices, because their customers already have seen some of these reports in the media and are asking if they are involved in corruption; they have no option but to protect themselves, so I can't tell you what specifically will come out of this, but I can tell you the company cannot sit by and have accusations thrown at them and do nothing. No international entity is going to sit by and have their name tarnished," Moore said.

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