Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health and Wellness (MoHW), Dunstan Byran says $2 million spent by the ministry on 45 raised televisions and 14 tablets during the first year of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic was to provide comfort for persons who would be quarantined for long periods during the upsurge of the virus.

Bryan, who continued to be grilled by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Tuesday over the ministry’s spend of more than $619 million in the COVID-19 period, up to March 2021, without questionable records and procurement management, said the devices were provided for the leased Marbella quarantine facility – a former hotel in St Thomas, as well as another isolation property owned by the ministry in Kingston.

The auditor general’s COVID-19 expenditure audit, which was discussed at the PAC’s meeting two weeks ago, had raised the issue of the spend as the ministry did not indicate on the purchase records the reasons for acquiring the devices.

“Consequently, we were not able to determine how these acquisitions related to the MoHW COVID-19 response initiatives,” the report read.

On Tuesday, the permanent secretary explained that the ministry recognised that in order to house persons in an isolated way, in a quarantine facility, “we had to provide basic amenities for their individual comfort because we were removing persons, their freedom of movement, and they had to stay in those rooms for sometimes up to 33 days in some instances,” he said.

Bryan noted that the facilities were not only retrofitted and provided with televisions but the ministry also had an arrangement with a cable company to provide Wi-Fi and cable services.

“Remember at that time, during the course of the first phase of the pandemic, persons had to get the double negative [test result] to be discharged from quarantine and so, sometimes they would spend up to six weeks in quarantine, and it was felt at the time that as a human issue that they should be provided with the requisite arrangements for their comfort,” he said.

When quizzed by Opposition committee member Dr Morais Guy about the auditor general’s concern that there was no proper inventory for the items purchased, Bryan responded to say that “we accept that finding and those items have been placed in the inventory of the Ministry of Health and Wellness”.

Guy further pressed the permanent secretary about the ministry’s spend on the Marbella quarantine facility which cost $13 million to be suitably retrofitted for quarantine services, but Brayn could not say how much it was leased for. However, he noted that the lease agreement was for a year, and was executed through the National Land Agency (NLA).