Contracts were awarded to Petroleum Company of Jamaica (PETCOM) board chairman Barbara Clarke’s private company, Elegant Traders Limited, after she assumed that position in March 2005, the contractor general said in his report released yesterday.

Contractor General Greg Christie, in a report to Parliament, said that the PETCOM board channelled 18 contracts, worth just under $5 million, for training PETCOM’s staff and promoting the company’s products into Clarke’s company over the last 3 1/2 years, including the past 20 months with her as chairman.

“Twelve of those contracts were awarded after Ms Clarke had assumed the post of chairperson of the PETCOM board,” the report added.

At the same time, the contractor general said Elegant Traders was not registered by the National Contracts Commission (NCC) to enable it to benefit from government contracts.

“The investigation also concluded that Ms Clarke was, at all material times, the majority shareholder, principal and managing director of Elegant Traders Limited, and that a conflict of interest existed wherein Ms Clarke, in her position, as chairperson of PETCOM, had the capacity to influence and, from all appearances, may have influenced, the award of contracts to her business interest, Elegant Traders Ltd,” said the report.

Clarke was the losing People’s National Party’s candidate in North Central St Andrew against the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party’s Karl Samuda in 2002.

Christie said that after an article appeared in the Observer on September 8 last year, alluding to a conflict of interest issue raised in the House of Representatives by the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) spokesman on Mining and Energy Clive Mullings, his office initiated the investigation in PETCOM’s procurement practices.

In the Observer article, Minister of Industry, Technology, Energy and Commerce Phillip Paulwell, in response to Mullings’ questions, said that the Cabinet had decided that chairpersons of public boards should not benefit from contracts awarded by those boards. However, he denied that the decision was triggered by Mullings questions which had been tabled weeks earlier.

The OCG (Office of the Contractor General) requisitioned details of all contracts valued at over $250,000 awarded at PETCOM between January 1, 2003 and August 31, 2006, as well as particulars of all training and promotional services contracts awarded during the period. The information was submitted to the OCG by way of letters between October 13 and 24.

The responses showed that PETCOM did not adhere to, in all instances, the government’s procurement guidelines in contracts issued to various entities.

In terms of Clarke’s company, checks done by the OCG revealed that she is the registered contact and majority shareholder for Elegant Traders Limited, a local company incorporated since October 1995. She holds 900 of the company’s 1,000 shares. Correspondences between Elegant Traders and PETCOM notes her as managing director. She also declared her business interest to the board in May 2005.

Elegant Traders accumulated over $4.4 million in contracts for customer service training of gas station staff between January 2003 and February 2006. The breakdown of contracted services from Elegant Traders included customer service training, staff training for service station attendants, forecourt staff and safety training.

Meanwhile, the contractor general said that the documents provided by PETCOM did not state the method of procurement used for contracting those services, and did not acknowledge that Elegant Traders was not registered with the National Contracts Committee (NCC).

The report said that although PETCOM’s general manager, Desmond Thomas, indicated that a procurement committee with an assigned procurement officer was in place, the information could not be verified, as there was no record of the committee’s deliberations, or any evidence of procurement committee meetings being held.

NB: A correction was made to the lead paragraph of this story.