KINGSTON, Jamaica— The Ministry of Health and Wellness has released what it says is the chronicle of events relating to its contract with Market Me Consulting.

The release comes after days of questions surrounding the awarding of more than $40 million worth of contracts to Market Me.

The company is behind the ministry’s Jamaica Moves fitness campaign.

A copy of the Ministry’s complete statement is below:

Based on the heightened public discourse on the matter of the ministry’s engagement of the firm Market Me Consulting Limited (hereinafter referred to as “the firm”) the ministry now provides for the information to the general public the chronicle of activities:

On July 12, 2016 the Firm made presentation of a proposal for the implementation of a Social Marketing campaign to support the Jamaica Moves programme as a Component of the National Non-Communicable Disease Strategic Action Plan 2013 – 2018 to the team at the Ministry of Health;

Based on the conclusion of the negotiations, on November 28, 2016, the Ministry made submission to the National Contracts Commission for the approval of an award to the Firm as an unsolicited Proposal (Appendix 1). Under Volume 2, Section 1.2.1 of the HANDBOOK OF PUBLIC SECTOR PROCUREMENT PROCEDURES “An unsolicited proposal may be considered by a Procuring Entity if it: a. demonstrates a unique and innovative concept, or demonstrates a unique capability of the contractor; b. offers a concept or service not otherwise available to the Government; and c. does not resemble the substance of a recent, current or pending Competitive Tender.

The submission was approved via letter dated December 2, 2016 from the National Contracts Commission (Appendix 2). The approval was for an award of a contract for the amount of Fifteen Million Nine Hundred Thousand and Seven Hundred Dollars ($15,900,700.00).

In June 2017, the ministry signed the contract with the Firm for a period of 12 months (Appendix 3). The contract was concluded on March 2018.

On July 17, 2018 a new Terms of Reference was developed for the Jamaica Moves Campaign to include Jamaica Moves in Schools, Jamaica Moves in Communities and Jamaica Moves in Workplaces (Appendix 4)

On December 18, 2018, a Request for Proposal (RFP) was issued to the Firm with a deadline for submission of December 28, 2018 that was further extended to January 2, 2019. The submission was made by the Firm on January 2, 2019 at 2:15 pm using the two envelop method where the technical and financial proposals were submitted in separate envelops.

On January 3, 2019, approval was granted by the Permanent Secretary for the Utilisation of Direct Contracting under Volume 2, Section 1.1.4(e) of the HANDBOOK OF PUBLIC SECTOR PROCUREMENT PROCEDURES where “follow-on procurement, where a contractor has already provided goods, services or work and additional goods, services or works of a similar nature are required to complete the procurement requirements”. Given the fact that the programme was to continue and similar work was to be done in relation to the delivery of social marketing interventions the approval was granted. (Appendix 5)

An Evaluation Committee was convened on January 8 and 18, 2019 to review the technical proposal. The proposal received an Evaluated score of 65.6 below the threshold score of 70. However, the Evaluation Committee agreed to proceed to open the financial proposal given the fact that the process was a direct contracting assessment. (Appendix 5)

Negotiations were conducted with the Firm on February 5 and 22, 2019. The original in-house estimate for the activity was One Hundred and Sixty-Six Million Three Hundred and twelve Thousand Dollars (J$166,312,500.00) for 24 months. This estimate related to all advertising placement costs, material costs, costs of activations and management/consulting fees. The financial proposal submitted by the firm had a cost of One Hundred and Eighty-Three Million, Three Hundred and Nine Thousand Dollars (J$183,309,000.00). After negotiations it was agreed that the contract would be reduced to a one-year period and placements of advertisements and procurement of items for activations would be undertaken by the Ministry. The total sum of FiftyOne Million, Three Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars (J$51,350,000.00) was determined as the ceiling. The firm was requested to further revisit the Financial Proposal given the new determinations and a returned financial of Thirty-Eight Million Nine Hundred and thirty-One Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty Dollars (J$38,931,820.00) was submitted. (Appendix 5)

On March 22, 2019, the ministry made a submission to the Consultancy and General Services SubCommittee with the recommendation for an award of contract to the Firm in the amount of ThirtyEight Million Nine Hundred and thirty-One Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty Dollars (J$38,931,820.00) and the matter was then reviewed by the Public Procurement Commission on May 1, 2019. Appendix 6 details the deliberations between the PPC and the ministry and the subsequent approval of the award on May 9, 2019.

It is to be noted that at this time the ministry had been engaged in this process for several months and the risk associated with retendering and restarting the process, which could take upwards of 6 months, was measured.

On July 4, 2019 the contract was signed with the Firm for an amount of Thirty-Eight Million Nine Hundred and thirty-One Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty Dollars (J$38,931,820.00). (Appendix 7) with 10 deliverables as detailed in Annex C of Appendix 7.

On July 17, 2020 the monitoring of the contract was undertaken by a committee that was responsible for the sign off on all technical aspects of the deliverables and the overall contract management. The contract expired in June 2020 with a total disbursement of Twenty-Seven Million Seventeen Thousand Five Hundred and Seventy-One Dollars and Eighty-Nine Cents (J$27,017,571.89).

Finally, during the period March 17, 2017 to July 20, 2020 other payments have been made to the Firm totaling Thirteen Million Three Hundred and Thirty-Four Thousand Six Hundred FiftyTwo Dollars (J$13,334,652.00) a total of 49 payments ranging from a low of Ten Thousand Dollars (J$10,000.00) to a high of One Million Four Hundred and Forty-Eight Thousand Seven Hundred and Fifty Dollars (J$1,448,750.00). Appendix 8 has the listing of all located payments that have been made by the Ministry of Health. The ministry has also provided the payment documents which can be reviewed with the link cloud.moh.gov.jm/s/4o6kBTZFfHP6K8D. If we are able to locate any additional information we will update the listing and provide the information in similar format.