Jamaican watchdog calls for prosecution of Cabinet

(CNS): Jamaica’s contractor general has referred the country’s entire Cabinet to the public prosecutor for criminal prosecution over the government’s failure to comply with several statutory requisitions relating to four major projects which his office has been investigating. The watchdog for Jamaica’s public purse said Cabinet has failed to give the office the information it needs in order to carry out its legal mandate to monitor critical public projects. Acting contractor general Craig Beresford said he was “exceedingly concerned” over the lack of transparency. Given the gravity of the issue and Cabinet’s seeming disregard for the law he said he has no alternative but to push for prosecution.

“The OCG considers the Cabinet’s non-compliance to be tantamount to an obstruction to its Office, as it seeks to faithfully discharge its mandates and obligation to the People of Jamaica by ensuring that Government contracts, inclusive of licences and permits, and the divestment of State assets, are awarded/granted impartially, on merit and in circumstances which do not involve impropriety or irregularity,” Beresford  stated in a release from his office Wednesday.

He accused government of using the court action against his office by the transport minister as a basis for not complying with the OCG request. However, he said until the courts restrain the OCG from proceeding with its lawful work the failure by the government to comply with his requests is a violation of the rule of law and is under section 29 of Jamaica’s Contractor General Act, a criminal offence.

The acting contractor general indicated that some of the information he needs to see relates to the systems and mechanisms that the government intends to put in place to ensure that all contracts relating to the $423 million Economic Agreement between Jamaica and China, are awarded impartially, on merit, and in circumstances which do not involve impropriety.

“The OCG remains perturbed by these unprecedented and unfortunate sequence of events which undoubtedly seek to challenge the OCG’s authority as a Commission of the Parliament of Jamaica and begs to question the rationale which could legitimately account for the failure and/or refusal of the Cabinet to comply with the lawful requirements of a Contractor General – an institution which was established by the Parliament of Jamaica to act as a layer of checks and balance to, amongst other things, provide greater levels of accountability, transparency and probity in the Government contracting process,” he said.

Vowing to battle corruption in Jamaica, which was ranked as the 87th most corrupt country in the world from a list of 180 in last month’s Transparency International’s corruption index, The former contractor general Greg Christie  led the call for anti-corruption measures against public officials. Beresford is currently acting as the contractor general until Christie is replaced. According to the Jamaican press Senior Deputy Director of Public prosecutions Dirk Harrison has been tipped to become the next contractor general there.