THE Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) may be able to tread at least one place that the Office of the Contractor General (OCG) has been blocked from going, in obtaining information on a recent government deal, when it resumes on Wednesday at Gordon House.

This, in terms of the 226-room Grand Lido Braco, which was leased by Canadian firm Sun Wing Limited in late 2011 to be operated by its Blue Diamond Resorts Limited subsidiary as the Braco Resorts Hotel.

The OCG is not satisfied with the transparency of the lease arrangements involving Sun Wing and the National Insurance Fund (NIF), which owns the hotel, but says that its efforts to get the facts are being hampered by a lack of cooperation from the Cabinet Office.

In the latest special report from the OCG to Parliament — “concerning the posture of the Cabinet of Jamaica with respect to certain lawful requisitions of the OCG” (December 2012) — acting Contractor General Craig Beresford complained that the Cabinet Office’s refusal to turn over requested information pending exhaustion of the judicial process has delayed completion of the OCG’s investigations.

It was one of the challenges Beresford listed in his request to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for that office to pursue criminal charges against the Cabinet last week.

But PAAC chairman Opposition Member of Parliemant Edmund Bartlett thinks that the ministry of Labour and Social Security (MLSS), which operates the NIF, will have to provide the PAAC with some answers when it appears before the committee at Gordon House on Wednesday.

The Jamaica Observer’s sources say that Sun Wing wanted to purchase the property from a year ago, but the former government felt that the NIF should accept a lease agreement instead. They signed a lease agreement last November, which expired this year, the renewal of which by the current government has sparked the OCG’s current interest in the matter.

Bartlett, incidentally, was minister of tourism in the previous JLP government when the original lease was signed, and he admits that there were some procurement and operational issues.

However, he said that his ministry insisted on a lease and that the lease process was entirely between the MLSS and Sun Wing.

The company has since announced construction of a 500-room, five-star hotel next door to Starfish Hotel in Trelawny, which will be marketed under its five-star brand, Royalton Luxury Resort, and is also reportedly planning to expand into Negril. However, it seems it still has its sights set on owning Braco.

Braco’s general manager, Enrico Pezzoli, says that Blue Diamond Resorts is in Jamaica to stay and wants to have a stronger presence here.

“But all of that should become much clearer when we deal with the issue on Wednesday,” Bartlett said Friday, noting that the NIF’s handling of its investments drawn from taxpayers’ contributions to the National Insurance Scheme (NIS), including the Braco property, will be addressed by his committee.

Permanent Secretary in the MLSS Alvin McIntosh said Friday that his ministry was prepared to answer any questions arising from the deal.

He said that the ministry had already provided the OCG with the information that had been requested.

The year-to-date performance record submitted to the PAAC by the MLSS shows that at the end of October the NIF had $71.2 billion in value, representing an increase of $646.6 million or one per cent since October, 2011.

The Fund increased its net assets (excluding fair value reserves) to $2 billion, and some of the factors which were listed as contributing to the improvement in net assets: interest income of $3.2 billion; dividend income of $336 million; rental income of $154 million; and pension contributions of $5.5 billion.