Kern Spencer, Opposition Member of Parliament, breaks down in tears during a sitting of the House of Representatives last October following revelations by Mining and Energy Minister Clive Mullings about possible fraud in the distribution of free Cuban light bulbs to Jamaican households. - File

A damning report on the Cuban light-bulb affair has been submitted to Parliament by Contractor General Greg Christie who, in his findings, described former State Minister Kern Spencer's actions during the procurement process of the project, as "unwarranted, improper and unlawful".

In a 124-page report, the contractor general found evidence of breaches of the Government Procurement Procedures Handbook (GPPH), the Contractor General Act, the Financial Administration and Audit Act and the Public Bodies Management and Accountability Act.

These breaches were due primarily to an apparent failure on the part of the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) and the former Ministry of Industry, Technology, Energy and Commerce (MITEC) to apply adequate planning, procurement and accounting controls to the development, implementation and execution of the project.

Christie charged that the breaches occurred due to what appears to be an unwarranted, improper and unlawful ministerial intervention by the former state minister.

Powers reserved

He said these processes were reserved, by law, for execution by the government's administrative arm and its accounting and accountable officers, prior to the endorsement by the National Contracts Commission (NCC) and or the Cabinet.

According to Christie, the former state minister conceded that the initial engagement of the eight project contractors in July 2006, was as a direct result of his attempts to procure goods, works and services associated with the project, after the management of the project was conveyed to him, in June 2006, by former Minister of the MITEC, Phillip Paulwell.

The contractors included Caribbean Communication and Media Network Limited (CCMN), Universal Management and Development Company (UMD) (where Sherine Shakes, the mother of Spencer's child, was engaged as project manager/business development manager), and Stacey Ann Waite, who is a friend of Sherine Shakes and who Spencer said he had engaged "indirectly".

In a written response to requisitions of the Office of the Contractor General (OCG), the former state minister said that "to facilitate the smooth running of the project, my office made initial contact with the following organisations/persons directly or indirectly, to spare the PCJ and MITEC the embarrassment".

"I had to rely on persons that I was familiar with in the past and persons who were willing to offer credit and respond to the requirements immediately. The intention was to engage those persons to deal with the emergency situation at hand," Spencer told the OCG.

No written contract

Christie said the OCG has not seen evidence of any written contract between the Government and any of the project's suppliers or contractors.

In its conclusion, the OCG stated that there was no transparency, fairness, impartiality or merit in the procurement of the contractors for the project.

This was due to the absence of a competitive tendering exercise and the lack of an acceptable selection methodology by which the contractors were engaged. This was in contravention of the Contractor General's Act and the GPPH.

Christie said this should not be surprising since several of the project's contractors, inclusive of the main contractor - UMD, were hand-picked and engaged by Spencer.

And, in an attempt to regularise the contracting of project management services for the light bulb project, the then existing contract was put to competitive tender by MITEC in March 2007, months after the project started in July 2006.

"The results of the tender process revealed that UMD's proposed rate was three times the rate which was tendered by the other bidder, Power Services Company Limited (PSCL)," Christie said in his report.

Christie said the Government did not receive value for money for the services rendered by UMD in its execution of the project.

Despite the PSCL's competitive bid and subsequent endorsement by the NCC, in June 2007, the final steps were never taken to have PSCL replace UMD as the project management services contractor for the light bulb project.