THE Urban Development Corporation (UDC) said yesterday that the public purse was well protected in the Sandals Whitehouse hotel project, and that the corporation had been vindicated by the report of the Forensic Audit Team that investigated it.

The UDC, one of three partners of the hotel and the one mostly blamed by the auditors for the US$43.3-million cost overrun, said in a statement that the report “now provides the Jamaican public with a professional report which incorporates a detailed analysis of the technical, managerial and corporate issues supported by relevant documentation”.

“It is now clear that the imputation of corruption and waste of public funds which has been bandied about is groundless and that the funds expended on the project have resulted in the creation of a hotel facility which represents value for money”.

The UDC said it was always confident that the agreements between the client and contractors, consultants and sub-contractors, contained adequate provisions for the requisite level of services needed for the design and construction of the now 400-room hotel development.

“This confidence has been vindicated by the report of the Forensic Audit Team, as well as by the quality and viability of the final product. We are indeed satisfied that the report has established the fact that ‘the total amount paid out for the negotiated professional services amounted to approximately six per cent of the projected construction budget.

“When compared to the then and present market rate of 12%, there can be no doubt that the public purse was well protected,” it said.

The state-run corporation accepted that the consultants were selected by “a non-competitive process”, but argued that some of those consultants were not only leaders in their respective fields of expertise, but also had previous knowledge of the project and site, having provided services to the project “prior to the publishing of the guidelines for public sector procurement in October 2000, and the establishment of the relevant sector committee in August 2001”.

It said the hotel had already achieved the objective of stimulating economic development in the region as was evidenced by housing, job creation, improved skills training, growth of support industries and services and the expansion of physical infrastructure.

The UDC became the main casualty of the fallout at Whitehouse when its chairman, Dr Vin Lawrence resigned from the board, as well as all other state boards, following the Contractor-General’s Report which also blamed the corporation for much of the problems besetting the project.