‘We gonna stand up for our rights’

THE EDITOR, Madam:

The National Works Agency (NWA) wishes to clarify several misstatements of facts by Principal Director of the National Integrity Action (NIA), Trevor Munroe, in his February 6 article, titled ‘Get up, stand up for your rights ... don’t give up the fight’. Mr Munroe made statements which are inconsistent with known facts.

He erroneously stated that the agency was in breach of the Public Bodies Management and Accountability Act for 10 years. First, it is important to define what the Public Management and Accountability Act speaks to and also delineate the areas of the regulation to which the NWA is guided. The act, in main, speaks to the requirement for public bodies, which the NWA is, to have their books audited and have in place a suggested management structure that oversees the running of the enterprise. Our records show we have always facilitated our books being audited by the Auditor General’s Department (AGD), and that all such reports up to the year 2020 have been completed and available for review.

Our conformance has met the satisfaction of the auditor general to the extent that the department, in February 2020, recommended that the NWA engaged the services of private-sector auditing firms to audit its books. This was further evidence that the AGD was satisfied with the management of our accounting practices and the funds entrusted to the enterprise.

MISREPRESENTATION

The misrepresentation of the facts continued when Mr Munroe suggested that “this chronic breach represents a failure to report annually to the responsible minister and through the minister, to the parliament and people”. That, too, is not the complete story. As stated before, the books of the NWA have been audited, and the reports have been made available to our parent ministry. These documents will show how the funds given to the agency have been spent on our operations.

Further, claims were made that only nine per cent of contracts were put out to competitive tender. This statement juxtaposed with a reference to NWA requires further interrogation. What Mr Munroe did not explain that such reference was in relation to a report done by the AGD in 2020 into operations at three other government entities and not the NWA. The AGD had done a report into contracts relating to roadworks at the Rural Agricultural Development Authority, the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation, and the St Catherine Municipal Corporation. It would have been good to state this fact.

Our procurement system is robust and ready to stand scrutiny. The rules of engagement does allow for different methods of selecting contractors, providing the relevant criteria, established by government for contracting, are met. The NWA can, without fear of successful contradiction, categorically state that all our procurements are in strict conformance with the Government’s public procurement law.

We commend the civil society advocate for his noble intent to track good governance; however, now that the other half of our story has been told, we hope he, along with other members of the public, do see the light.

E. G. HUNTER

Chief Executive Officer

National Works Agency