UPDATED: Fraud and corruption at KSAC!

Contractor's allegations on tape – OCG

Monday, May 30, 2011

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Contractor General Greg Christie announced today that his office has uncovered evidence of alleged fraud in the island's biggest parish council, which oversees local projects ranging from road repairs to waste management.

Gully and drain cleaning contracts worth $96 million (US$1.1 million) were awarded to a fake contractor who admitted in a sworn statement that her sham business acted as a front for at least three officers in the Kingston and St Andrew and Corporation (KSAC), Contractor General Greg Christie alleged.

Christie said the woman acknowledged that she had no construction experience and the government projects were illegally undertaken by agents of her accomplices, who paid her 10 per cent for her part in the alleged ruse between November 2006 and November 2010.

The woman, who also implicated a works employee of the KSAC, said in her sworn statement to Christie's office that her role on the various work sites was to "just stand and look from morning till evening."

The alleged fraud was discovered when the fake contractor was summoned to the contractor general to account for the discrepancy in the sworn statements she had made in her applications. The people listed as her employees said they had never heard of her.

KSAC officials did not return calls today.

Christie said he will refer the investigation over to police.

In March, Christie announced his office was undertaking comprehensive audits of all the island's parish councils following allegations of "irregular procurement practices" at some of them. Contracts and other details of all work projects undertaken by councils since last year have been requisitioned.