Edmond Campbell, Senior News Coordinator

Campbell(center)

Information Minister Colin Campbell yesterday insisted a Noel Hylton report on the controversial Sandals Whitehouse project does not exist, raising further questions about what document was used by the Opposition during a recent Sectoral debate presentation in Parliament.

Mr. Campbell said, however, that Hylton, the chairman of the Port Authority of Jamaica who was commissioned by former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson to conduct an investigation into the Westmoreland-based project, might have prepared documents in relation to the controversial project.

Late last week Mr. Hylton denied that he had submitted a report last year on the matter.

This followed charges by Opposition Spokesman on Foreign Trade, Karl Samuda, who quoted extensively from what he termed the 'Hylton Report' during his presentation to the 2006/2007 Sectoral Debate in Parliament in June.

However, Minister Campbell, speaking at the weekly post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House, yesterday, surmised that Mr. Hylton might have been working for months trying to settle "all the various issues including issues of payment".

He said that, while Mr. Hylton was doing his work, matters overtook him both in terms of a court case and in terms of the forensic audit.

"As to the existence of something called a report, I absolutely believe that that exists but it is not a report which was sent to the Prime Minister and passed on to the Cabinet and considered as the end of a process, that never happened," Mr. Campbell said.

The Information Minister said that the allegations made by Mr. Samuda would have to be addressed by Parliament when the House convenes on September 5.

In a letter dated July 18, Mr. Hylton wrote to the president and CEO of the Urban Development Corporation, affirming that he did not submit a report to (then) Prime Minister P.J. Patterson who had appointed him to lead an enquiry into the matter in 2005.

Meanwhile, Contractor General Greg Christie submitted a report to Parliament in July, detailing massive cost overruns totalling US$41 million on the Sandals Whitehouse project. He blamed principal partners in the project, the UDC and Gorstew Limited, for the excesses.

The Information Minister also told journalists yesterday that the forensic report into the Sandals Whitehouse project is expected to be submitted to the Prime Minister this week.