Bunting tackles Gov't on secret deals

CENTRAL MANCHESTER Member of Parliament Peter Bunting has accused the Government of engaging in a shady contracting system in breach of the procurement procedures.

Bunting, who accused the Government of treating the Parliament as a rubber stamp, said there appeared to be a plan to hide information from the public.

"We have seen a pattern of transactions by this government in negotiating major contracts where hugely important elements of these contracts are hidden from the public view ... hidden even from the contractor general, hidden from the auditor general, where no one can determine at the end at the day if there was a fair deal, if the taxpayers get value for money," Bunting said.

He pointed to the sale of Jamaica's shares in aluminium plant Jamalco, the Chinese road-fund deal and the Falmouth cruise pier project as examples of contracts where full disclosure has not been made to the public.

Procedures circumvented

"There are elements of these transactions which are opaque. Nobody can see through and understand the role that these entities play," Bunting said.

With reference to the Falmouth cruise pier, Bunting noted that an international tender was abandoned and a new method used to "procure a contractor that circumvented all of our procurement procedure and scrutiny by the contractor general and auditor general".

"We see the same pattern of transacting with the Chinese road programme where there is no guarantee of value for money," Bunting charged.

However, Prime Minister Bruce Golding has denied that Government has been far from transparent in its contracting. He said the contracts are entered into in good faith and that Government found those cited by Bunting to be advantageous.

"I want somebody to tell me that we violated some procurement arrangement because we took a proposal that was completed after the tender process has been completed and the proposal was more attractive than the two (that were being considered)," Golding said.

Royal Caribbean is a cruise line operator responsible for constructing the pier, and Golding said it was good business sense to contract that company as it was doing the job cheaper and also had an interest in the pier.