FORMER culture minister Lisa Hanna says the Contractor General’s report on ‘Jamaica 50’ activities, which was tabled in Parliament earlier this week, clears her of any wrongdoing in the execution of her duties in the 2012 national celebrations.

In a release, issued yesterday, Hanna, who is now embroiled in a fresh round of sparring with current portfolio minister Olivia Grange over remarks she made about ‘Jamaica 55’ now being planned, said: “The OCG has made no expressed finding of any personal wrongdoing on my part. I was the political leader of the ministry. My role was to make policy and to give policy guidelines. The ministry has a permanent secretary who has administration responsibilities. He carried those out without any interference from me”.

Contractor General Dirk Harrison has lambasted the ministry for having displayed “scant regard for certain established standards of accountability and transparency” in the execution of ‘Jamaica 50’, and concluded that there was a cost overrun of $72.1 million on the local component of the ‘Jamaica 50’ celebrations. Cabinet approved $688 million but $553 million was spent.

Harrison said in the report that according to a cash flow document presented by Minister Grange, up to December 2011 approximately $23.8 million was spent on the celebrations but, at the same time, categorically stated that the OCG accepts this as fact in the absence of documentary evidence. Harrison, however, pointed out that there was a discrepancy between what the Jamaica 50 Secretariat said was spent, and the OCG’s own calculations, based on its findings.

Plans for ‘Jamaica 50’ began under Grange’s watch, and assumed by Hanna when her party took office in 2012 after the Jamaica Labour Party was defeated at the polls in the 2011 general election.

Hanna insisted that she did everything possible to ensure that all arrangements for the celebrations were made in the best interest of the country and with the best use of taxpayers’ money “as far as was possible with what had already been put in place”.

The former minister reiterated that on entering office, she found “an ingrained culture of extravagance” and charged that plans to expend $2 billion on the activities was “foiled and discarded”, by her and that it was her questioning of previous expenditure that had prompted the OCG’s investigation.

The Government, Hanna said, must answer for its return to a culture of extravagance and stop trying to implicate her in what it alleged was its own corruption and nepotism.

On the controversial ‘Jamaica 50’ commemorative pins, Hanna explained that the Government had incurred no costs when it contracted two companies in 2012 to produce and sell the pins as they were manufactured at the expense of the contractors.

But Grange on Wednesday charged that investigations were still ongoing to track down thousands of pins, which cost thousands of United States dollars to mobilise production.

In response, Hanna said: “As per the agreement, the Government was paid a small percentage of sales and all unsold pins were to be given to the Government. The pins now in the possession of the Government were sent by one of the companies as per the agreement.” She insisted that all the relevant files pertaining to the processes were at the ministry.

According to the OCG report, a contract for $1 million was awarded on July 19, 2012 to one company to supply memorabilia pins among other items; one was contracted for $715, 600 on July 12, 2012; and another was awarded a contract for $1,195,294 on July 11, 2012. All contracts were awarded using Government’s direct contracting procurement method, meaning only one contractor was engaged for each contract, under specified circumstances.