ALSTON Stewart yesterday continued to deflect blame from himself for the massive US$43 million cost overrun on the beleaguered Sandals Whitehouse project being investigated by Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

Stewart, head of Nevalco Consultants Limited which acted as site manager for the project managers, the Urban Development Corporation (UDC), told the PAC that while there had been a breakdown of the approval system for increased expenditure he was not in breach of the terms of his contract.

At last week’s PAC session, Stewart had claimed that most of the US$43 million cost overruns could be attributed to the actions of one partner, the Gorstew-owned Sandals Resorts International (RSI) and its agent, Implementation Limited which he claimed “circumvented” his authority and exercised undue influence over the lead contractors on the project.

Ackendown Newtown is the joint venture company which built and owns the Whitehouse Hotel in Westmoreland. The other two partners are the UDC and the National Investment Bank of Jamaica (NIBJ).

Sandals, which also manages the hotel, is in court with the UDC, blaming it for massive losses suffered by the hotel chain because of delays in opening the hotel and poor finishes that forced Sandals to refund huge sums of money to the early guests.

Continuing his submissions yesterday, Stewart told the committee he was not prepared to quantify the costs incurred on the project because of the interference on the part of Implementation Limited as this was a matter before the courts.

Asked how approval had been granted for increased expenditure in several areas of the project, Stewart claimed that of the 15 consultants employed to the project 11 had been selected by the Gorstew representative, giving the company direct access to changing the specifications on the project and incurring additional costs.

He, however, admitted that some of the consultants had fallen down in their duties with respect to the delivery of drawings.

Quizzed by opposition member Audley Shaw as to whether there was a paper system of written approvals for each area in which costs were increased, Stewart insisted that there was “no simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer”. According to him, the system was violated by persons in all instances and this resulted in the increased costs.

“The system broke down, I made several attempts to retrieve the system. I am the butler in the house, the owner of the house I can make all the recommendations to, but if the owner insists on not following those recommendations I have no choice but to mitigate as much as possible,” Stewart told the PAC meeting.

This was despite the fact that records from a previous site meeting had quoted Stewart as saying, “SRI could request a Rolls Royce and get it if the project has budgeted for it, but if it is not in the budget SRI will get it only if it comes to me and I, in the authority given to me, can approve it but otherwise it goes to the owners who discuss amongst themselves and if so choose to approve”.

But yesterday Stewart failed to satisfy the PAC that he had adhered to the terms of his contract which stipulated that no increased spending was to be undertaken without the prior approval of the UDC.

Noted Shaw: “We go back to your contract you signed with the UDC…and you were not to go and approve any increased spending without their approval.”

When pressed as to whether he had sought written approvals at all times, Stewart responded that “a system was in place”, further admitting that “there was no specific written approval as per a particular item”. This led PAC Chair Mike Henry to conclude that it was “clear that written approval was not given”.

In the meantime, several of the claims made by Stewart were yesterday refuted by Jeremy Brown, a director of Implementation Limited. In addressing claims that Sandals had incurred further costs by its decision to have the back of house area for the hotel increased beyond what was originally specified, Brown said this had been already announced by Sandals and was not a new development.

“Sandals had already announced that the increase was by 5,300 square feet but I understand that Stewart is claiming that it was by some 15,000 square feet,” Brown told the Observer.

“This is part of Gorstew Limited’s admission that they created overruns of $1.3 million before any dispute arose,” he added.

He further dismissed claims by Stewart that the majority of the US$43 million cost overrun was because of Gorstew’s circumvention of his authority by issuing instructions which resulted in increased costs.

“We are talking about overruns of US$43 million, no contractor would take verbal instructions from either ourselves or anybody that would cause an increase of any amount approaching U$43 million without it being in writing,” Brown pointed out.

Furthermore, he said “no instructions were given directly to the contractor from any of the Gorstew recommended consultants or from ourselves acting for Gorstew under the technical services agreement”.

“I would like somebody to produce these instructions that we supposedly gave in writing,” Brown added. “We issued no drawings or specifications directly to the contractor, all the information that was prepared by the Gorstew-recommended consultants was always given directly to the Nevalco consultants,” he said.

Responding to Stewart’s admission that some of the consultants had failed in their duties, Brown said while having no desire to take ‘potshots’ at Jamaican consultants, none of those consultants who failed to perform were recommended by Gorstew. He said the consultants who failed to perform were directly appointed by the UDC with absolutely no input by Sandals and those consultants were Gentech Consultants Limited and the Mechanical and Electrical consultants.