Contractor-General Greg Christie has said he is legally barred from probing the purchase of lands housing the Hydel Group of Schools in Ferry, St Catherine by the state-run Urban Development Corporation (UDC) because of a 1989 Supreme Court ruling.

Christie was responding to the Opposition People’s National Party’s (PNP’s) declared intention to ask him to probe the deal after the party criticised the Government, charging that it smacked of nepotism.

The PNP has called for transparency since Prime Minister Golding last week told Parliament that the lands acquired by the UDC at Ferry were earmarked for the development of the Kingston/Spanish Town corridor and confirmed that the Hydel Group of Schools would continue to operate on the land, as a lessee, until it is needed for development.

The PNP has alleged that the purchase was engineered by the prime minister because of his personal connection to the school’s principal, government senator Hyacinth Bennett, even though the UDC’s own Internal Investment Department had advised against it.

The Opposition party said the situation brought into question whether the dismissal of the entire board of the UDC by the prime minister recently was linked to their discontent with the Hydel deal. The Opposition has further contended that the purchase was a rescue act as Hydel was facing financial problems and was being forced from the property by the owners.

However, yesterday the contractor-general, in a statement to the media, said he was unable to respond to the Opposition’s call to investigate the J$168.7-million purchase.

“The OCG would have no hesitation whatsoever in conducting a thorough investigation into the matter, however, the OCG is prohibited under law from conducting any such investigation by virtue of a decision handed down by the Supreme Court of Jamaica in 1989 in the case of Wright vs Telecommunications of Jamaica Limited (TOJ),” Christie said.

In that case, Justice Lensley Wolfe, who later became chief justice, found that an agreement for the purchase of land by TOJ, a public body, for J$49.1 million was “not a government contract within the meaning of the Contractor-General Act”. The court also held that the “contractor-general does not have jurisdiction” over such contracts.

Christie said even though Wolfe later observed that “the public interest demands that contracts such as the instant one should come within the ambit of the Contractor-General Act” the “decision in Wright has prevented the OCG since 1989 from ensuring probity, transparency and accountability in transactions which involve the purchase of land by public bodies”.

The contractor-general further said that since his appointment to office in 2005 he has made several appeals – without success – to the Government and Parliament to amend the Act to vest his office with the power to monitor and investigate transactions involving the acquisition of land by state entities.

“The OCG views as unfortunate the failure of successive parliaments and administrations to act decisively and in the public interest in this most critical matter of good governance,” said Christie. “The failure to act has now brought into sharp focus the inability of the Government to conduct an investigation into a public body transaction which has garnered such widespread public attention.”