The controversy in the House of Representatives over the use of the funds obtained through the Jamaica-Venezuela PetroCaribe oil facility continued to rage in the pre-Independence session and is expected to dominate again when Parliament resumes in September.

The latest issue concerns accusations by the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) that the minister of finance has committed an irregularity by transferring $772 million from the PetroCaribe Funds to the Ministry of Water, Housing, Roads and Works for road repairs without the proper authority.

Leader of the Opposition, Bruce Golding, failed to get a full explanation of the transfer of the money. He said that without a dividend being declared, or the minister issuing an

appropriate instrument in exchange for the funds, the action taken by the minister, Dr Omar Davies, must be “irregular”.

Golding was asking follow-up questions to those he had tabled in the House previously, raising queries about the oil facility, including the volume and value of products imported from Venezuela under the deal; the amount paid to

Venezuela for those supplies; the deferred payment portions; who was responsible for it; and whether there had been any disbursements from this deferred portion.

The matter was placed firmly on the House agenda in March, during the debate on the first supplementary estimates when the Opposition expressed concerns that the funds could be used to lubricate the ruling People’s National Party’s election machinery for a fifth term in office.

“The PetroCaribe funds are not a giant cookie jar to be used as a pre-election system by the government to win a fifth term,” Opposition spokesman on finance and the public service, Audley Shaw said.

This followed a pre-budget dismissal, by former Prime Minister P J Patterson, of a proposal from Golding that the Opposition should have a say in deciding how the funds should be spent.

Shaw said that the money must go directly into the Consolidated Fund (budget) and that a special law be passed to accommodate it.

But Davies, in closing the debate in March, announced that the PCJ Act would be amended to allow for the

establishment of a fund into which the proceeds would flow. The fund, he said, would be administered by a board chaired by the financial secretary, Colin Bullock.

According to Davies, “I have already taken the submission to Cabinet, drafting orders have already been given to the chief parliamentary counsel and, hopefully, before the end of the financial year (2005/2006), I will be tabling a ministry paper in terms of how the funds will be formally used.”

However, the delay, which had been expected to last for a few weeks, has turned into months and Parliament still awaits the appointment of the board and the transparency promised by Davies.

On July 18, in a lengthy question and answer interlude between Golding and Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, the opposition leader asked on what basis were the funds transferred to the Ministry of Transport and Works.

“It is not my understanding that a government company can simply transfer funds to a ministry on the instructions of the minister of finance, even with the approval of the Cabinet,” Golding said.

The prime minister replied that the minister of finance had undertaken to carry out the transaction.

Golding asked, “Is it that the minister of finance intends to issue an appropriate instrument to the Petroluem Corporation of Jamaica for those funds? Because the PCJ has a responsibility to account for those funds, and the PCJ can’t give as its accounting for those funds that it was instructed to transfer the funds by the ministry of finance. The ministry of finance has no such authority.

Simpson Miller responded that a proper account was established and the minister of finance took the undertaking of dealing with the transfer. The account was established by the PCJ.

Golding said that in view of the fact that the funds are currently being held by the PCJ, pending the formal creation of the PetroCaribe Development Fund, which will eventually handle the funds, “my question is, based on the fact that if ministers of finance can start issuing instructions to government companies to start remitting funds to various ministries, then the entire accountability for government funds is going to be negated”.

“I am asking, what is the basis on which the PCJ forwarded those funds to the Ministry of Works? It has to be on one of two bases, either the board declares some dividend and it goes to the Consolidated Fund, in which case it has to come to Parliament; or the minister of finance issues to the PCJ an appropriate instrument in exchange for the funds. And I am asking the PM whether either of those two situations has changed, because if not, it is irregular.”

The prime minister assured the House that an undertaking was given by the minister of finance to the PCJ concerning the treatment of the funds.

Golding asked that a copy of the undertaking be tabled in the House, to which the prime minister agreed. She also agreed to a request from Shaw to provide a list of the roads selected for the project and how much was spent on each.