Colin Steer, Associate Editor - Opinion

Prior to taking up his current job as Contractor General, Greg Christie worked for more than a decade with Kaiser Jamaica as a senior management executive in charge of corporate, legal and government affairs. As such, he was required to interact frequently with the Jamaica Bauxite Institute (JBI) and its chairman, Dr. Carlton Davis.

Christie had also worked as Vice President and Assistant General Counsel with the Global Commo-dities Business Unit of the Kaiser Aluminium and Chemical Corpo-ration in Florida. While some people reportedly found him acerbic at times, he acquired a reputation of being thorough and well-prepared for his meetings, and it is said that in general "things flowed well" in those meetings. It is against that background that when a new CG was sought that Christie's name was floated and accepted without hesitation.

Betrayed

It is also being said that it was on Vin Lawrence's recommendation that the scale was tipped in his favour.

So in the wake of his report on the Sandals Whitehouse project and his being critical of the role of Lawrence, among others, some PNP people feel particularly betrayed.

In announcing his appointment in November last year, the government's official media arm, the Jamaica Information Service, said "Mr. Christie's diverse and extensive background in corporate management and law, together with his work in the Jamaican bauxite industry and experience in the management of strategic projects and commercial and procurement services, have all contributed to his selection as the most suitable and ideal candidate to be appointed Contractor General."

Clearly, since then Christie has turned over some stones and rotten lumber and the insects are scampering like mad. Subsequent to his reports about the use of public funds and the incestuous relationships on the Sandals Whitehouse project, the searchlight has now been turned on him in the usual intellectually dishonest manner to question his state of mind, his motives, the rental being paid for his house at government expense, and even the procurement process by which security guards are hired for his home.

A clear strategy has now emerged. Whereas initially the modus operandi of those who would defend the project was to latch on to the part of his report that said it provided "value for money" and saw in that an opportunity to deodorise any overhanging stench of corruption, the attempt is now being made to challenge his competence at various levels.

Counterproductive

One recent example was provided by Rev. Garnett Roper in the Sunday Herald. He suggested that the office of the Contractor General should be scrapped. It has become counterproductive, he says. Of course it has. It is as counterproductive as the public health inspector who gets in the way of vendors selling rotten meat in the markets.

It is not so much that Christie's reports and findings are significantly different in substance from his predecessors' about waste and ignoring of procedure and guidelines. It is that on this occasion, he has been prepared to go toe-to-toe with public officials who are accustomed to lying through their teeth, who then ignore the reports from the office and that of the Auditor General, and then repeat the mess the following year.

Christie's in-your-face style has infuriated those who expected him to allow the spin doctors to draw the usual red herrings across the pathway of public discussion. By his style, it may well be argued that he is out to create a name for himself. But if in the process he helps to bring greater probity and integrity to public affairs, then more power to him. The public interest should be of far more importance than any political blasphemy he is deemed to have committed against the PNP's gods.