Void contracts tainted by corruption – Golding
Published:Friday | October 25, 2019 | 12:09 AMEdmond Campbell/Senior Parliamentary Reporter
Opposition spokesman on Finance and Chairman of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Mark Golding, wants the Government to take immediate steps to amend the Integrity Commission Act, giving the corruption oversight body power to declare null and void contracts with public entities that are tainted by corruption.
Following such a declaration, the public body should be required by law to cease and desist from making further payments, Golding said in a statement yesterday.
“Furthermore, benefits already received should become liable to be disgorged by an order made on application to the court by the commission or the public body which has incurred the cost of conferring benefits under the contract.”
The opposition spokesman’s comments came against the background of remarks by acting president of the Caribbean Maritime University (CMU), Professor Ibrahim Ajagunna, in relation to the contractual arrangements between the university and former Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Member of Parliament Othniel Lawrence.
Ajagunna told Parliament’s Public Administration and Appropriations Committee on Wednesday that Lawrence had secured a three-year, one-of-a-kind contract with the institution that could not be terminated easily.
Golding charged that it was offensive to public sensibilities that contracts that have been granted in questionable circumstances should be allowed to run their course.
A clause in Lawrence’s contract, of which The Gleaner saw a copy, read: “... This agreement is terminable by either party at any time, with or without cause, effective upon notice to the other party. If CMU exercises its right to terminate the agreement, any obligation it may otherwise have under this agreement shall cease immediately, except that CMU shall be obligated to compensate the Advisor for work performed up to the time of termination ...”.
Asked to comment on this clause in the contract yesterday, Ajagunna said that the agreement was for consultancy, but there are other obligations not set out in the document.
“That is why I said in Parliament yesterday that it is a hybrid type of a contract between Lawrence and the CMU. The contract speaks to consultancy, but the arrangement and agreement between the two parties extend beyond that of the consultancy,” he said.
Two months after Lawrence signed the contract with the CMU, the JLP announced that then Education Minister Ruel Reid had been selected to replace him as the party’s caretaker for St Ann North West. Reid was sacked from his ministerial position in March this year and quit the caretakership in September.
Reid, his wife Sharen, daughter Sharelle, CMU President Fritz Pinnock, and councillor for the Brown’s Town division in St Ann, Kim Brown Lawrence, are facing corruption and fraud charges arising from a probe into the CMU and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information.