Stand up for your rights

THE EDITOR, Madam:

I write in relation to a letter published on Monday, February 14, 2022, titled ‘We Gonna Stand Up for Our Rights’, signed by E. G. Hunter, Chief Executive Officer, National Works Agency (NWA). In this letter, it is alleged that I “erroneously stated that the agency was in breach of the Public Bodies Management and Accountability Act for ten years”.

The Public Bodies Management Accountability Act (PBMAA), Section 3(2), states: “As soon as possible after the end of each Financial Year, but not more than four months thereafter, the Board of a Public Body shall submit the Annual Report including Audited Financial Statements of the Public Body to the responsible Minister, who shall cause the Report and Statements to be laid on the table of the House of Representatives.”

The Office of the Cabinet, on its website, publishes a table every two weeks titled ‘Submission of Annual Reports of Government Entities to Cabinet’. The most recent table states the situation as at January 31, 2022. This status report provides information in respect of each public entity on the submission of annual reports through their responsible portfolio ministers to the Cabinet [by] …. entities … legally required to submit annual reports to the portfolio minister for subsequent tabling in the Houses of Parliament. One hundred and sixty-one entities are included in this table.

On page 7, the table indicates that the period covered by the National Works Agency’s last report to Cabinet is 2010-11. The date of consideration by Cabinet is stipulated as June 1, 2015. Hence, according to the official tabulation by the Office of the Cabinet, the NWA is in breach of the PBMAA Section 3(2) for as many as ten years, as stated in my article published on February 6, 2022.

Of course, the NWA is not alone.

On the other hand, a minority of entities are exemplary in being up-to-date in having their 2019-2020 and/or 2020-2021 reports sent to the responsible minister and the Cabinet, in compliance with the time required by the law.

In my article, I asked the question: “How could it be that the Auditor General reported in December 2020 that only nine per cent of seven hundred and sixty-nine contracts for road infrastructure were actually put to competitive tender … many of those contracts awarded on a non-competitive basis, in breach of procurement law, did not result in a single public official being charged, prosecuted, and/or given an administrative sanction?”

The report to which I referred is titled Strengthening Road Management in Jamaica: Compendium Report of Performance Audits, Management Systems for Farm and Parochial Roads (December 8, 2020). This compendium reviewed the Auditor General’s findings on governance and procurement and contracts management at RADA, the St Catherine and Kingston & St Andrew municipal corporations (pages 7-8). This report did not refer to the NWA, nor did my article indicate that it did.

I therefore made no statements “which are inconsistent with known facts” in relation to the NWA.

PROFESSOR TREVOR MUNROE,

CD, DPhil(Oxon)

Principal Director

National Integrity Action