THE United States company which outbid Jamaican firms for the J$51.6-million contract to print 2.2 million textbooks for primary schools, has requested an additional sum, citing devaluation of the local currency versus the US dollar.

Information Minister Burchell Whiteman confirmed the request, in response to a question from Opposition Senator Bruce Golding in the Senate on Friday.

Golding asked whether the favoured United States firm, Von Hoffman Corporation, had requested payment in excess of the contracted sum due to the recent devaluations of the Jamaican dollar vis-a-vis the US dollar, especially bearing in mind that the contractor-general had already gone on record as stating that the contract did not contemplate any escalation.

“The request is under consideration,” was the response of Whiteman, who is also leader of government business in the Senate.

Clearly agitated, Golding urged the Government to consider “negotiating a fixed-price contract that would set a definite precedent for future transactions of this kind”.

Whiteman, however, while agreeing that Golding’s recommendation merited consideration, said the mere fact that Von Hoffman had made the request did not mean that it would be honoured, saying only that “I cannot at this point say that there will be no additional payments to the contractors”.

Last month, seven of the island’s largest printers blasted the Government for awarding the contract to Von Hoffman, arguing that the move deprived at least 200 Jamaicans of jobs.

The seven firms — Stehpenson’s Litho Press, Phoenix Printers, United Printers, Pear Tree Press, Mapco Business Printers, Precision Graphics Successors and Lithographic Printers — also questioned the delay in the delivery of the books and asked whether Von Hoffman would benefit from devaluation of the Jamaican dollar.

“No American company will sign a contract in Jamaican dollars,” the printers argued in a statement circulated to media houses, “so it is reasonable to presume that it was made out for the equivalent sum in US dollars at the time of quotation in November 2002. The dollar was then J$49.80 to US$1 and there was no two per cent cess on importation. Now it is nearly J$60 to US$1, a huge jump of almost 20 per cent.”

But Contractor-General Derrick McKoy said that Von Hoffman’s $51,680,418 bid was fixed, without any provision for exchange rate adjustments. He also said that Von Hoffman tendered in Jamaican dollars.

The Government has already paid out $36 million to Von Hoffman, with a balance of $15 million due. But Whiteman did not say what was the additional sum being sought by the US firm.

Noting that the bulk of the books was already in schools, with the remainder expected to be delivered to schools in St Andrew on Thursday last, Whiteman was supported by colleague, Noel Monteith, who said “this is the first time in the history of all of this that we have completed distribution so early”.

He added that last year, in the case of the Gleaner Company and its sub-contractors, as well as in former years, local production of the text books had been late and at times over budget.

Last month, the education minister, Maxine Henry-Wilson, insisted that the textbooks were not late as the local printers had claimed. The contractor was “performing within his contract and better”, she told the Observer.

“They have a contract that says they must do something within x amount of weeks, which does not have anything to do with the school year,” Henry-Wilson said. “If he does not, within the scheduled time, then it is considered late.”

Von Hoffman outbid its nearest rival, the Gleaner Company, by $3 million, but local printers said the cost was inconsequential as there were several other spin-off benefits to the local economy, including the 200 Jamaican jobs.

“The $3 million is neither here nor there, the money my workers earn help them to feed their families, it is spent locally, so local businesses benefit and there are so many other economic benefits,” said local printer, Richard Scholefield, one of the sub-contractors who benefited in the past.