UPDATED: ‘Compromised transparency’

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining awarded almost $870 million in contracts without its procurement committee’s review, an action that “compromised transparency”, the Auditor General’s Department says.

In its 2024-2025 Annual Report, released last week, the department reported that the ministry “did not provide evidence that the procurement committee met and reviewed recommendations for the award of contracts/procurement of goods and services totalling $868.85 million”.

The Government of Jamaica Procurement Guidelines state that the committee is “mandated” to review contract recommendations, among other things.

“Consequently, the audit was unable to confirm whether procurement decisions were subject to appropriate review and compliance with established rules. This lack of oversight compromised transparency and heightened the risk of the ministry not achieving value for money,” the report stated.

According to the auditor general, the ministry acknowledged the concern, but stated that while procurement committee minutes were unavailable, “evaluation reports confirmed compliance with competitive bidding requirements”.

However, the auditor general said that explanation did not address the core breach.

Competitive bidding

The report noted that although evaluation reports showed adherence to competitive bidding, “the failure of the procurement committee to meet and review recommendations for the award of contracts/procurement of goods and services contravened Sections 2.2.5 and 2.2.5.1 of the Government of Jamaica Procurement Guidelines”.

Those provisions require the committee to review contract award recommendations and evaluation reports, ensure compliance with policies, respond to contractors’ inquiries, maintain comprehensive meeting records, meet reporting obligations, and make recommendations to the head of the procuring entity.

The report concluded that the procurement committee’s failure to convene and review recommendations “constituted a breach of governance and accountability obligations under the Government of Jamaica Procurement Framework”.

The audit of the ministry covered the recurrent appropriation accounts for the period ending March 31, 2022, the audit report said.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining is headed by Agriculture Minister Floyd Green. The permanent secretary is Dermon Spence, who is also the principal accounting officer in the ministry.

editorial@gleanerjm.com

EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier version of this article quoted the Auditor-General's annual report for the year 2024-2025, but did not note that the issues in question were related to the year 2021-2022. The version was also accompanied by an image of Minister of Agriculture Floyd Green, as chief representative of the ministry which was under review. The Gleaner apologises and hereby seeks to correct any impression that the issues were connected to the 2024-2025 period, or that the minister was the subject of the review.