'Trip was no gift' - Vaz declares nothing inappropriate about Golding-Seaton bird-shooting vacation

Erica Virtue and Edmond Campbell, Senior Gleaner Writers

INFORMATION MINISTER Daryl Vaz has dismissed claims that government contractor Y.P. Seaton funded Prime Minister Bruce Golding's recent bird-shooting vacation in Paraguay, arguing yesterday that the payment arrangement was in keeping with a long-standing tradition among old friends.

Vaz, responding to questions at yesterday's post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House, declared that Golding, in his personal capacity, had refunded Seaton who had made advanced payments for group members on the annual bird-shooting vacation which he had organised.

According to Vaz, Golding and Seaton have been friends for more than 40 years and Seaton and the prime minister, along with other persons, have for more than 30 years participated in bird-shooting expeditions in Jamaica and overseas.

Seaton, he added, has over the last 20 years arranged bird-shooting expeditions to Paraguay and other South American countries

"I do not have to defend Y.P. Seaton or his company's track record. However, since he has been brought into the limelight, I think it important to indicate that his company has won major government contracts on the basis of the existing procurement guidelines since 1969," Vaz read from a prepared statement. "He is an award-winning grade-one contractor and has attained major contracts throughout both PNP (People's National Party) and JLP (Jamaica Labour Party) governments. He is not a contractor who is born out of an administration and fails in another leaving a trail of civil and criminal proceedings."

Yesterday, the PNP called for the commissioner of police to immediately commence an investigation into whether the prime minister accepted a gift from Seaton in breach of government procurement guidelines. The party had earlier called for Contractor General Greg Christie to probe the matter.

However, Christie said yesterday that if the prime minister had received a gift from Seaton his office had no jurisdiction to investigate. He directed that the matter be sent to the police and or the director of public prosecutions.

$730,000 reimbursed

Vaz took to the post-Cabinet briefing a copy of a cheque for $730,000 drawn on Golding's account, which he said was the reimbursed sum for the prime minister and his son, Steven. The payment date on the cheque is June 14, five days before the matter was brought to light in a newspaper article.

"Therefore, let me make it abundantly clear, that this trip, was in no way, shape or form, a gift to the prime minister or his son," Vaz said, arguing that the uproar was yet another distraction from the positives that were taking place in the country and was rooted in the PNP's inability to come up with original ideas.

However, taking full responsibility for how the prime minister's vacation arrangements had been handled, Vaz conceded that, he would not use the same approach in the future.

In his response yesterday, Contractor General Greg Christie noted that YP Seaton and Associates has been awarded 35 government contracts in the sum of $2.7 billion between May 2001 and November 2010. Of that amount, 17 contracts valued at $2.3 billion were awarded since October 2007.

Christie also pointed to Section 4 (3) (g) of the October 2010 Government of Jamaica (GOJ) Handbook of Public Sector Procurement Procedures (HDSPP), saying it expressly provides that "public officials shall not accept gifts from current or potential GOJ (Government of Jamaica) contractors".

In addition, Christie highlighted sections 1 and 3 (a) of the First Schedule to the December 2008 Public Sector Procurement Regulations, which prohibits public officers who are "concerned in any aspect of the process of public-sector procurement" from accepting gifts from a prospective contractor.

He said a breach of the foregoing provisions of the HPSPP and regulations could attract criminal sanctions.