EDITORIAL - PM can make JDIP crisis a political gain

Whether Mike Henry's resignation from the Cabinet was voluntary, or requested by Prime Minister Andrew Holness, it is overdue. It should have been simultaneous with the tabling of Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis' report confirming the drunken-sailor-hits-town manner in which the Government's Chinese-financed big road rehabilitation programme was being managed.

But it is not only Mr Henry and Mr Patrick Wong, the former head of the National Works Agency (NWA) - who preceded the minister out the door - who should be held to account for this clear breach of public trust in the oversight of the Jamaica Infrastructure Development Project (JDIP). Ensuring this is now the urgent responsibility of the newly installed Prime Minister Andrew Holness, who inherited the scandal.

When the country borrows money - in this case US$400 million - it is expected that it will be used for the stated purpose and prudently invested to deliver an economic return from which the debt can be serviced.

Prudence was not the hallmark of the JDIP. For according to the auditor general, whose findings were substantiated by other independent revelations, the NWA, the implementing agency for JDIP, was loose in its contract negotiations and often failed to inspect work it commissioned. Worse, it used over J$160 million of the borrowed money to refurbish and furnish its headquarters in murky procurement arrangements.

It may be a credit to the negotiating skills of China Harbour Engineering Company that it was a able to wangle, in the absence of competitive bidding, the job as the main contractor on these projects and net hundreds of million of dollars largely for overseeing subcontractors. That does not obviate the responsibilities of public officials, who must follow the rules and, as the auditor general reminded, must be mindful of their "fiduciary responsibility to ensure that government and, by extension, taxpayers obtain value for every dollar spent".

In the face of the auditor general's findings, Prime Minister Holness, to his credit acted with dispatch to move the oversight for JDIP to his office. He appears, however, not to have discovered the depth of the problems surrounding the scheme.

Mr Holness must, therefore, move quickly to claw back lost value for the benefit of taxpayers. In that regard, he should halt all JDIP and related projects and, if required in the public interest, renegotiate existing contracts.

Identify the individuals

Additionally, he must identify the individuals whose managerial negligence precipitated this debacle, whether in Mr Henry's old works ministry, on whose behalf the NWA operated; the Road Maintenance Fund, which fronted the JDIP loan; the finance ministry, which has oversight for all money borrowed by the Government; or the head of the civil service who has responsibility for the managerial conduct of his senior subordinates. Where failures are identified people must be held to account and, if appropriate, criminally prosecuted.

Mr Holness must also determine whether any money from JDIP-related contracts flowed to his Jamaica Labour Party, or the People's National Party, in which event they should be made to pay it back and the relevant legal penalties applied.

Mr Holness may consider these options risky. However, doing them would signal to thinking Jamaicans, to whom such things matter, whether he really is a man who stands for integrity, or is merely a new, younger face of an old order.