STUNG by criticisms over his ‘value for money’ statement in regard to the contentious Sandals Whitehouse hotel project, Contractor-General Greg Christie now says he never meant that there was “excellent economic value for taxpayers’ money”.

Christie said his assessment, as to “value”, was an accounting one and not an economic one, and that the objective was to determine whether there was evidence that the payments made could be correlated with the work that was certified as being done.

Nowhere in his report, he said, was any attempt made by his office to opine on the issue of the economic value of the project, or to justify, in any way, the reasons for the cost overrun which was sustained.

Christie included the clarification in an addendum tabled Tuesday in Parliament in support of his original July report to the House of Representatives.

The contractor-general’s critics, including Leader of the Opposition Bruce Golding, lashed him for his use of the phrase “value for money”, which was instinctively interpreted to mean that the taxpayers’ money was well spent.

“A number of media stories and personalities have questioned the OCG’s meaning of the (statement) ‘value for money was largely obtained given the works which are completed on the ground’. Others have elicited their own meaning from the statement. On July 21, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bruce Golding, also wrote to the OCG to seek clarification of the statement,” Christie wrote in the addendum.

“In all of these instances, the inadvertent, but inaccurate, assumption appears to have been made that what was being conveyed by the OCG was that the Sandals Whitehouse Hotel project represented excellent economic value for taxpayers’ money,” he said.

“It should not be read and was never intended to be read as a stand alone sentence. Please carefully read the statement together with the sentences which follow immediately thereafter. When this is done, it will become readily evident that there is a clear discourse which speaks to the process of agreeing payments with the contractor for work which was completed upon the project. This unequivocally sets the context within which the sentence as to ‘value’ was made and was intended to be interpreted,” he explained.

“The OCG’s statement as to ‘value’ was not based upon economic evaluations or indicators, but rather upon the basis of work which was certified as completed by the quantity surveyor. The OCG’s assessment as to ‘value’ was an accounting one. It was not an economic one.

“The objective of the assessment was to determine whether there was evidence that the payments, which were made on the project, could be correlated with work which was certified as being done. It is in this context that the determination was made that there was value…on the ground.”

Former Information Minister Colin Campbell had used Christie’s original report to paint a glowing picture of the work of the Urban Development Corporation in the construction of the Whitehouse hotel in Westmoreland, which is under investigation by Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, after revelation that there was a US$43-million cost overrun on the project.