SOLICITOR-General Michael Hylton has defended Contractor-General Greg Christie’s ignorance of a 2001 Cabinet decision allowing for special employment projects up to $250,000 to be awarded without going to tender, attributing it to his short term in office.

“The contractor-general apparently wasn’t aware of this decision and I must say in his defence that there are a great number of decisions, and that he is fairly new to the office and may not have been aware of ,” Hylton told the Observer.

“You don’t learn everything the first day,” Hylton continued. “It is a period of time before you learn all the things that are out there. I certainly didn’t learn everything the first day and don’t know them all now. So, after six years that wouldn’t shock me,” he added.

Hylton was making reference to a letter Christie wrote last week to talk-show host Wilmot Perkins denying that he had agreed with Minister of local government and environment Dean Peart to limit these community projects to $100,000, and that he was not even aware of the Cabinet decision on the $250,000 figure.

The issue arose on November 7 when Bruce Golding questioned why an audit done by the ministry had indicted the St Catherine, St Mary and Westmoreland Parish councils for issuing contracts up to $250,000 without tender when the Cabinet had approved the action.

But on Saturday Hylton sought to clarify the context in which these contracts should be awarded. He explained that this was a case where a Cabinet decision had indicated that a ‘particular category’ of contracts under $250,000 could be issued and approved without going through the full tender process.

A Cabinet decision dated July 30, 2001, was made some two months after the Ministry of Finance and Planning issued a procurement handbook with new guidelines.

But Hylton said Cabinet could issue amendments to the guidelines as well as exception or changes. “And this is a case where a Cabinet decision indicated that the contracts can be issued and approved without going to tender,” he said.

The contractor-general, Hylton added, does not issue guidelines and/or determine the process, “so the Cabinet or the National Contracts Commissions (NCC) will issue a guideline and the contractor-general ensures it is followed”.

Yesterday, a release from the Office of the Contractor-General (OCG) stated that Christie received confirmation on November 17 that Cabinet’s decision regarding contracts for special employment programmes was “never circularised”. He also reitered his denial of any agreement with Minister Peart.

“Contractor-General Greg Christie received confirmation on Friday, November 17, 2006, that Cabinet Decision No 28/01, dated July 30, 2001, was never circularised to the OCG by the Ministry of Finance and Planning. The classified Cabinet Decision, a copy of which is now in the possession of the OCG, is marked ‘Confidential,” the release stated.

Friday’s disclosure by the Ministry of Finance is fully consistent with and confirms the position which was previously articulated by the contractor-general, the release further noted.

“It is therefore very unfortunate and regrettable that the Minister of State in the Ministry of Local Government has seen it fit to publicly impute to myself and to the OCG, professional incompetence because we were unaware of a classified Cabinet document which the Government, to date, has not formally sent or circularised to OCG”, the release quoted the contractor-general as saying.