LAWRENCE. the publication of the contractor-general's report on Sandals Whitehouse has created a new environment

DR Vin Lawrence, the most powerful non-elected public official in successive People's National Party (PNP) administrations, yesterday became the first major casualty of the troubling Sandals Whitehouse hotel issue.

Lawrence's dramatic resignation from the tainted Urban Development Corporation (UDC) and all public sector boards was accepted by Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, who simultaneously turned the investigation into the hotel scandal over to Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

Appearing to be rearing to go, PAC chairman Audley Shaw immediately signalled that he would get the ball rolling by referring the contractor-generaI's report that sank Lawrence to the auditor-general.

Simpson Miller, fulfilling a weekend promise to act on the contractor-general's report, announced her decision to call in the PAC and accept Lawrence's departure, in a statement issued to the media at the weekly post-Cabinet briefing at Jamaica House.

But she spoke highly of Lawrence, saying that he had served the UDC with distinction and that during his tenure, he was instrumental in steering a number of infrastructure and development projects across the country.

The UDC is being held accountable for a massive US$41-million overrun on the Sandals Whitehouse hotel, as the agency was the main developer of the southcoast project.

Gorstew, Butch Stewart's holding company which partnered the state-agency on the project, last November sued the three developers - UDC, the National Investment Bank of Jamaica (NIBJ) and Ackendown Newtown Development Company - for US$29 million in losses it incurred on the project because of major faults and delays in completion of the hotel.

Explaining her decision to accept the UDC chairman's resignation, Simpson Miller said she had repeatedly given a commitment to "protect the public interest and ensure full accountability and transparency" and that the issues raised in the contractor-general's report on the project were "extremely serious matters" requiring "full and public ventilation".

"I have today, also written to the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, Mr Audley Shaw, inviting the committee to consider, at the earliest opportunity, the serious breaches of government's procurement procedures contained in the contractor-general's report on the Sandals Whitehouse project," she said.

Shaw, the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party(JLP) spokesman on finance and the public service, told the Observer last night that he was willing to convene a meeting of the PAC at the earliest possible date, despite Parliament's Independence break scheduled for this weekend, but that he would await the intervention of the auditor-general.

"First of all, I am going to formally refer the contractor-general's report to the auditor-general and allow him to do any further due diligence that is necessary. I understand that the first draft of the forensic report will be available in another two weeks, after which I will discuss it with the auditor- general, then we will determine the most expedient time for the committee to start meeting," Shaw said.

He said that the PAC would also be interested in how US$41-million in overruns at the hotel were paid for out of the Caracas Fund, which preceded the PetroCaribe oil facility with Venezuela.

He pointed out that Dr Lawrence was also the chairman of the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ), which is in charge of the PetroCaribe Fund.

The prime minister accepted Lawrence's resignation from a number of public boards, after meeting with him at Jamaica House prior to yesterday's Cabinet meeting. But she turned down a similar offer from the rest of the board of the UDC who met with her after the Cabinet meeting.

A release from Jamaica House said that she asked the rest of the UDC board to stay on pending a forensic audit currently being done by a committee appointed in January by former Prime Minister P J Patterson and headed by Desmond Hayles, president of the Jamaica Institute of Architects.

Other members of this committee are Robert Wan, former president of Jamaica Institute of Quantity Surveyors; Calvin Roache, former president of the Jamaica Institute of Quantity Surveyors; Grace Ashley, former president of the Jamaica Institution of Engineers, and Dr Allan Kirton, former permanent secretary.

The team has been mandated to carry out a thorough forensic audit of the Sandals Whitehouse project from inception to completion.

Lawrence, who has a PhD in civil engineering from Queen's University in Canada, heads his own company, JENTECH Consultants Limited, which has also been linked to the Sandals Whitehouse scandal.

At the same time, he chaired a number of public sector agencies and companies, including the UDC, Air Jamaica, the Bauxite and Alumina Trading Company (BATCO), Jamaica Bauxite Mining, the PCJ, Petrojam and Clarendon Alumina Production.

In a statement yesterday announcing his resignation, Lawrence said that although he had agreed to a five-month extension of his chairmanship of public sector bodies, following the selection of a new prime minister at the end of March, "the publication of the contractor-general's report on the Sandals Whitehouse has created a new environment".

He said that the UDC had already responded to the allegations of impropriety made in the report and that he had come to the decision that "I could best facilitate the fullest airing and examination of the issues raised by bringing this extention of my appointment to an end".

The prime minister said yesterday that an interim chairman of the UDC would be appointed shortly. However, the extended term of the current board is scheduled to expire at the end of August.

The surviving members of the UDC board are Jack Wilmot, Leon Gordon, Roy Hutchinson, Carlton DePass, Rudyard Ellis, Annalise Harewood, Marjorie Campbell, Vivalyn Edwards, Annette Braithwaite, Gary Peart, Richard Burgher, Jacqueline DaCosta, Reynold Scott, Sonia Hyman, George Duncan and Fiona Rerrie.

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