THE Office of the Contractor-General (OCG) says it has fired three senior officers who were allegedly involved in attempts to corrupt the National Contracts Commission (NCC) government contractor registration process.

“The OCG, as an independent anti-corruption commission of Parliament, wishes to publicly warn any Government contractor applicant who would seek to corrupt the NCC’s contractor registration process that its actions will not succeed,” Contractor General Greg Christie warned yesterday.

According to the OCG, a scam was unearthed late April

when a contractor presented forged documents purportedly signed before a Justice of the Peace in order to receive Government contracts.

At the centre of the racket is a former “long-serving” member of the OCG staff who was asked to resign last year following allegations of involvement in corrupt activities.

In the latest case the OCG said that a semi-completed contractor re-registration application form was received in April for due-diligence evaluation and processing prior to submission to the NCC.

Preliminary investigations, which were carried out by the OCG, found that the fraudulent application had been allegedly prepared and submitted, on behalf of the contractor, by the former OCG staff member for a fee of $10,000.

During the course of its investigations, the OCG said it also discovered that a failed attempt was made by another contractor who offered a $75,000 bribe to an employee to get his company registered with the NCC.

The contractor was reported to have claimed that he knew of another contractor who previously paid $75,000 to the accused former OCG staff member for a similar service.

But after the employee reported the bribery attempt to three senior officers, the OCG said, no further action was taken nor did the officers bring the matter to the attention of the Contractor General or the director of the department concerned.

As a result, the employment contracts of the three OCG senior officers, who failed to report the alleged acts of corruption, were terminated by Christie with immediate effect, the OCG said in a statement yesterday.

The OCG added that since April 23 it has intercepted several other contractor registration application forms which appear to be irregular or contain misleading, forged or fraudulent information.

According to the OCG many of these applications seem to have been completed by the same person and/or attested to before the same Justice of the Peace.

“The OCG has handed the application forms over to the Fraud Squad and, accordingly, they will not be processed by the NCC so long as the matters are under investigation by the police,” the OCG statement said.