(Jamaica Observer) The certification and re-registration process for contractors seeking government contracts has become so mired in corruption that Contractor General Greg Christie said his office will now perform forensic examinations of each application.
Christie last week told a joint select committee of Parliament examining his annual report that some contractors have so falsified the details of professionals required for their outfits that the applications of all 2,340 contractors — 540 of whom are works contractors — are being examined individually.
“We are having a lot of problems with this because what we have found is that the process is mired in corruption. I spoke to the prime minister about it because we have been constantly changing our processes because of the corrupt who survive among us,” Christie charged.
Currently there are 32 categories for works contractors, and five grades, with grade five being the highest. The remaining 1,800 contractors are service providers.
Christie said corruption had so seeped into the process that applicants were paying professionals between J$50,000 and J$100,000 to lend their credentials to their outfits, in order to maintain registration at a particular grade.
“We get the application form and they have John Brown, graduate of Univer-sity of Technology with a Bachelor’s in civil engineering, and working with me for three years full time, because for a grade one you have to have certain full-time staff,” he explained.
But according to Christie, some of the contractors’ claims are false.
“When you check those people now, you call them up they say ‘no, I don’t work with that guy’. Or, you find out that those persons don’t exist. We have been finding that out over the last two years,” Christie said.
“We are here to make a guess to say probably more than 50 per cent of the contractors who are registered today are registered on the basis of false representations. And those application forms must be sworn in front of a justice of the peace and that applicant, to be true and accurate,” the contractor general said.
When the Sunday Observer contacted Raymond Cooper, president of the Incorporated Master Builders Association (IMBA), for a comment he admitted that there are difficulties, however, he said that some of the claims can be explained.
Cooper said the grading of contractors is set by the National Contracts Commission (NCC).
“We enquired of the NCC and the OCG (Office of the Contractor General) and we were told that they have found some discrepancies in applications and they are now moving to a more stringent inspection and examination of the applications,” Cooper said. “They want to check every application and the details surrounding those applications.”
But the process, he said, was time-consuming.
Re-registration normally takes four to six weeks, but Cooper said some IMBA members complained of slowness, which posed difficulties.
Contractors not registered with the NCC cannot get government work, he said.
“We are seeking a meeting with the NCC to look at some of the terms of the requirements for re-registration,” added Cooper. “We have asked them to make public announcements about the process. Because it is rigorous, it takes more time, so maybe people need to submit their re-application three months before to prevent any period of inactivity.”
In his presentation to the joint select committee, Christie admitted to a backlog, stating that the process must now undergo “forensic assessment” to root out the corrupt among them. The backlog should be cleared in less than a month, he said, adding that corruption had so seeped into the process, it only became discernible under the stringent verification process.
According to Christie, “a grade one contractor is a contractor who you are certifying has the competence; financial resources; assets; human resources; and human technical professionals to construct like a Jamaica Pegasus Hotel”.
Grade one contractors can be awarded contracts of J$150 million or more, grade two, J$75 million-J$149 million; grade three, between J$40 million and J$74 million; grade four, between J$5 million and J$39 million.