PNP renews call for full audit of funds spent on rehabilitating CRH

WESTERN BUREAU:

Dr Alfred Dawes is again echoing a call by the opposition People’s National Party (PNP) for a full audit of the J$25 billion the Government says has been spent on the rehabilitation of the Cornwall Regional Hospital in Montego Bay, St James.

Dawes, who was speaking on Monday during a town hall meeting in Mt Salem, where the hospital is located, said that should his party form the next government after the impending general election, which is constitutionally due by September, the PNP would be seeking to ascertain if there was any “mismanagement and potential misappropriation”, especially against the background that J$25 billion is substantially more than the original J$2 billion projection.

“The repairs were originally budgeted at $2 billion over the last eight years but have now reached $25 billion,” said Dawes, who earlier, toured the hospital. “I believe that an audit is necessary so that we can know if there are persons who unlawfully benefitted from the misery of Jamaicans through the theft of taxpayer dollars.”

In September 2023, when the price tag had reached$14.1 billion, Senator Janice Allen, the PNP’s caretaker for St James Central, called for Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis to conduct a special audit of the CRH rehabilitation, noting the constant shifting of the completion time and the ballooning of the price tag.

Responding to Allen’s call, Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton said any accusations of corruption in relation to the expenditure at CRH were unfounded and that while there might be justification for arguing about the pace of the work, any talk about corruption was without merit.

However, during Monday’s town hall meeting, Dawes emphasised the importance of transparency, saying that it was going to be one of the issues the PNP plans to investigate.

“We will be looking to see if an audit of the Cornwall Regional Hospital renovation is warranted when we assume office. The country and public funds cannot continue to be misused without proper scrutiny,” said Dawes. “We looked at the site earlier today, [and] it is as if construction just began.”

WHERE DID THE MONEY GO?

While acknowledging that work began under a new contractor six months ago, Dawes stated, “I agree that not much work was being done before, so the question is, where did the billions of dollars go if after all of that spend, we are at the point where it [CRH] is a shell of a building just being outfitted with the electricals and dry walls, and so on.”

Dawes went on to state that the mismanagement of resources on the project represented a tremendous cost to the taxpayers of Jamaica.

“It is a tremendous opportunity cost that we are bearing as taxpayers, outside of the people who have died because of the lack of provision of services,” said Dawes, arguing that the funds could have been used to upgrade other healthcare facilities and procure critical medical equipment.

The Type A hospital, the only such facility in western Jamaica, has faced extensive delays and challenges since 2017 when noxious fumes forced the evacuation of several floors. Rehabilitation began in 2018 with an initial budget of $2 billion, but the costs have since skyrocketed, prompting public outcry and demands for accountability.

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