JUTC admits breaches

The Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) has acknowledged that it breached the government procurement guidelines in its award of contracts.



In its 2008 fourth quarter report to the Contractor General, the state owned bus company admitted that 57 contracts valued at more than $171 million were not lawfully approved.



The company was one of three public entities, which was recently referred by the Office of the Contractor General to the Director of Public Prosecutions for its failure to submit its quarterly report by the prescribed February 3 deadline. The JUTC submitted the outstanding report on February 27.



In the report JUTC Director, Paul Abrahams said remedial actions have been taken in the number of instances where it was found that the required guidelines were not strictly adhered to.



He said an Internal Management Procurement Committee was set up on February 5 in keeping with the recommendation of the Contractor General’s findings from an investigation conducted in 2008.



Among the findings of the OCG’s investigation was that the JUTC’s Procurement Committee had met only once between August 2007 and July 2008 and that the Committee was never lawfully constituted.



The OCG had also found that the company’s Board of Directors failed in its duty to the bus company by allowing it to award contracts in breach of the stipulated guidelines and without any prior evaluation and approval by a duly constituted Procurement Committee.



According to the contractor general the report was challenged by the Transport Minister and directors at the JUTC regarding the number of meetings held by the company’s procurement committee.



They reportedly claimed that 10 meetings of the Finance and Procurement Committee had been held between November 2007 and July 2008, suggesting that the procurement rules were adhered to.



The contractor general is therefore now questioning the company’s need to set up an Internal Management Procurement Committee.



The OCG has also commended Dr. Alwin Hales, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Transport and Works, and Mr. Paul Abrahams, the JUTC’s QCA Certifying Officer, for what he said was the courage shown in being candid and forthright about the JUTC’s obvious failings and shortcomings.