'Talk to National Contracts Commission'

Ministry, NWA say all contracts within procurement guidelines

Saturday, August 21, 2010

THE Ministry of Transport and Works has distanced itself from the full-scale probe launched by Contractor General Greg Christie into contracts won by Strathairn Construction Company Limited (SCCL), a company which up to 2007 was linked to Government Member of Parliament Everald Warmington.

According to Permanent Secretary Dr Alwin Hales, the ministry has only one contract that could be of interest in Christie's probe but says this was awarded in keeping with Government procurement guidelines.

Staff at the ministry and the National Works Agency (NWA) were on Wednesday paid an unannounced visit from a five-member OCG audit team as a preliminary step to the expanded probe to review and or take into custody documents and files, inclusive of ledgers, related to the said contracts.

But Dr Hales said to his knowledge no seizures were done at the ministry.

"I understand they (OCG team) visited the ministry; they were directed to the National Works Agency where such documents and files were located. We discovered only one contract that was awarded by the ministry to that company and it was under an IDB programme for Hurricane Dean (in 2007) repairs, valued at $17 million.

"It was awarded in keeping with government's procurement guidelines; it is available for scrutiny by the contractor general. Any other contract awarded was done by the NWA and not the ministry," Dr Hales told the Observer.

NWA CEO Patrick Wong in a brusque response to the Observer said the OCG's beef if any, would be with the National Contracts Commission since the NWA only did business with contractors from the list of those registered. He said any "issue" the OCG had with Strathairn would have to be dealt with at that level.

Christie, in a statement to the media Thursday, announced that the OCG had "expanded the ambit of its special investigation into contracts which have been awarded to Strathairn Construction Company Limited (SCCL) to include scrutiny of contracts which have been performed by SCCL, for and on behalf of the National Works Agency and/or the Ministry of Transport and Works".

The contractor general said his probe was spurred by what he said were sworn, written and tape-recorded statements alleging that the award of certain works contracts which were issued by the St Catherine Parish Council for performance in the St Catherine South Western constituency were allegedly influenced by Warmington, who is the Member of Parliament.

The contracts were awarded to Strathairn, for which Warmington was a director up to September 1, 2007, when the presently ruling government triumphed at the polls.

According to the OCG, based on its preliminary document review, sums amounting to approximately $70 million were paid by the NWA to SCCL between March 2007 and June 2010, reportedly in respect of certain Government contracts which have been performed by SCCL about which it has a number of concerns.

And the contractor general has accepted the apology made by Warmington, although he said it was not communicated personally.

An upset Warmington on Monday levelled a blistering verbal assault on Christie after receiving notice that the OCG had begun the probe.

"Despite the fact that I have not had the privilege of receiving his apology personally, I have, nonetheless, accepted it in principle and I wish Mr Warmington all that is well", Christie said.

"It is my hope that he would have come to realise that the OCG is merely dispassionately discharging a mandate which has been imposed upon it by a statute that was crafted not by the OCG, but by the very Parliament in which he now sits", the contractor general said.

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'Talk to National Contracts Commission'