KINGSTON, Jamaica —  The Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) of the House of Representatives has turned to its consultant economic adviser, Earl M Bartley, for advice on how to proceed with its review of the huge under spending in the Tourist Product Development Company’s (TPDCo) special projects budget.

Chairman of the committee, Opposition MP, Edmund Bartlett, said he had no choice but to refer the matter to Bartley, who has been assigned to the committee through an agreement with the World Bank to provide expert advice on economic issues.

This followed a noisy period of the sitting at Gordon House on Wednesday, as government and opposition members traded insults over the reduced figures and the failure to implement the projects.

OBSERVER ONLINE reported last week that the PAAC was informed by TPDCo’s executive director, Dennis Hickey, that only $94 million, or 15 per cent, of its special projects budget of $616.6 million for 2013/14 was spent up to the end of December.

However, yesterday, Hickey turned up with fresh figures, showing that TPDCo had only planned to spend $178.5 million of the amount by December, and actually spent $97.8 million, or approximately 55 per cent.

Hickey told the PAAC that there was no intention to spend the whole $616.6 million by December, 2013. However, that raised questions as to whether TPDCo planned to spend remaining $438 million in the three months of the last quarter of 2013/14, which ends March 31.

“The performance against the fiscal expenditure is what we are looking at. You can’t say that you intended to spend $178 million, when your budget is really $616 million: That’s not how it goes,” PAAC chairman, Edmund Barlett pointed out.

TEF is chaired by Government senator, Noel Sloley, and TPDCo by former minister of education and culture, Maxine Henry Wilson. Plans by the previous government to merge the two institutions were scrapped in May, 2012, by the current government.

Balford Henry