Contractor General raises more concerns about JDIP contracting process

Contractor General, Greg Christie, has raised more concerns about the contracting process for infrastructure work to be done under the Jamaica Infrastructure Development Programme, JDIP. 

Mr Christie raised the concerns with the Auditor General and the Chairpersons of the Public Accounts, the Public Administration and Appropriations and the Infrastructure Committees of Parliament. 

It’s not the first time that the Contractor General is highlighting concerns over the Jamaica Development Infrastruture Programme, JDIP.  

Now he's expressing discomfort about the award of the 400 million U.S. dollar road works contract to a single entity, China Harbour Engineering Company without it being put to tender.

Mr. Christie says it's of prime concern to the OCG because it represents the first time in the history of Jamaica that a major road works rehabilitation contract of this value and magnitude has been awarded.to a single contracting entity without competition. 

He says his office is not the only one concerned.

Mr Christie pointed out that the National Contracts Commission, NCC, expressed in a letter in January last year, that it too was concerned that a contract of this size should be entered into without competition in order to ensure that value for money was being obtained.

But the method of choosing China Harbour as the main contractor was not the only concern.     

Greg Christie says the matter is further compounded by the fact that China Harbour was allowed to offer subcontracts involving public funds, to other companies, without the usual checks and balances, to ensure competition, transparency and value for money in the process.    To partially remedy what he calls a very worrying issue, Mr Christie on Monday published a full listing of the sub-contractors of the JDIP. This confirms last Thursday’s a story from the RJR Newscentre that YP Seaton was the contractor receiving the largest contract sums under the programme in years one and two -  about a quarter of the 14 billion dollars in contracts valued at almost 4 billion dollars. The subcontractor with the second largest contract award is Build Rite with about 2 billion followed by Rogers Land Development, Dwights Construction, Alcar Construction and Asphalt Construction, all with over a billion dollars in contracts.

Mike Henry’s concerns 

 And Transport and Works Minister, Mike Henry, has described utterances from the OCG, as being manipulative and misleading.

 In a statement Monday, Mr Henry said the process of selecting the firm was well known to the OCG.

 He noted that as part of the agreement, the 340 million US dollar loan from the China Exim Bank came with a pre-condition for a Chinese firm of its choice to undertake the programme. 

“That information has long been conveyed to the OCG, and was even reiterated in a document that was supplied to the OCG by the National Works Agency (NWA) in late May, 2011, but was noticeably missing from a release from the OCG on the matter earlier today [Monday],” Mr. Henry said. 

 In addition he said “The Jamaican Government, for its part, negotiated with the Chinese for the inclusion of local sub-contractors in the execution of the works, to which they agreed and have been using grade one companies from the list of National Contracts Commission (NCC)-registered contractors in Jamaica.”