Daraine Luton, Staff Reporter
Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller speaking at the PNP NEC meeting at the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston yesterday. - NORMAN GRINDLEY/
DEPUTY CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER
THE PUBLIC should know later today what action Prime Minister
Portia Simpson Miller will take in relation to government officials and agencies
responsible for the massive cost overrun in the Sandals Whitehouse hotel project.
"Tomorrow, I will indicate to the Cabinet the actions that I will take at this time while we await the forensic audit report, for which I understand we will receive the preliminary in two weeks, and the final in a month," Mrs. Simpson Miller told the National Executive Council (NEC) of the People's National Party (PNP) at yesterday's final day of its two-day annual general meeting at the Jamaica Conference Centre, Kingston.
Mrs. Simpson Miller said Cabinet has already examined the report tabled in Parliament by Contractor General Greg Christie last week.
Mr. Christie's report accused Government agencies and officials, including former Urban Development Corporation (UDC) chairman, Dr. Vin Lawrence, of committing flagrant breaches of procurement procedures on the controversial construction project that wracked up millions of dollars in overruns.
Yesterday, Mrs. Simpson Miller told the NEC that "as Prime Minister, I am treating this matter very, very seriously."
"I am taking the necessary action to protect the interest of our country and the integrity of all our national institutions. Any action I take will be consistent with the practices of good governance while not prejudicing the outcome of any further investigation or court action," the Prime Minister said.
Among other things, the Contractor General had recommend that, "the legislature acts decisively and with urgency to ensure that public bodies and public officials who, with flagrant and glaring impunity, ignore the Government's procurement procedures, are made to be held punitively accountable for their misdeeds and breach of the public's trust."
Colin Campbell, the general secretary of the party, in a press release yesterday said the NEC has "expressed confidence in her stated determination to take whatever action flowed from this and any subsequent report."
