PROJECT manager for the controversial Sandals Whitehouse hotel, the state-run Urban Development Corporation (UDC), was not as proactive and assertive as it should have been and failed to ensure that its contractual obligations were honoured.

This was one of the conclusions reached in the draft report of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) after 23 meetings spanning September 2006 and April 2007, to determine who or what was responsible for the US$43-million cost overrun on the Westmoreland project.

The PAC draft report also rapped the board of directors of ANDCO, the joint venture company established to run the project, for its failure to be attentive in monitoring the project and the cost commitments made.

But despite the several months of probing, the committee has not made a final decision on recommendations regarding its findings on the contentious hotel and the quarrel among its three partners – the UDC, the National Investment Bank of Jamaica (NIBJ) and Gorstew, the holding company for Sandals.

After meeting yesterday to consider the third draft of its report, committee members were still undecided on a final position on several of the conclusions in the draft document.

Government member John Junor, in querying the overruns on the project, argued that it would be instructive for the committee to note that there was a difference between ‘increased costs’ and ‘cost overrun’ since there had been a US$20 million provisional sum which would accommodate variations in cost.

However, Auditor General Adrian Strachan said he considered the US$43 million sum being quoted as the overrun amount.

“I would consider it to be the US$43 million because although they started at US$60 million, the board agreed on US$70 million, we believe the difference properly represents an overrun in terms of what planning envisaged at the outset.

There are a host of reasons for the overrun and what is important to me is not that you don’t call it an overrun but rather that you indicate clearly what are the factors that contributed to the overrun,” Strachan told the committee.

There was enough information, he said, to bring the matter to a close.

Junor also suggested that in future arrangements the legal instruments guiding projects should be vetted to ensure that there was no potential for conflict.

He argued that there was ‘dissonance’ in the arrangements under the heads of agreement signed by the partners which allegedly gave Gorstew an unfair advantage.

The committee meets again next Tuesday to complete its perusal of the draft report.