Christie

It took strong action, including making referrals to the director of public prosecutions (DPP), but Contractor General Greg Christie is reporting a quantum leap in the number of government bodies providing reports on the performance of their contracts.

Christie told the Appropriations Committee of Parliament yesterday that only five out of 165 agencies had failed to submit their quarterly report to his office last month. This was a major improvement over what happened in October 2006, when a mere 25 of the 165 agencies reported on time. Following that disappointing 2006 response, he said the Office of the Contractor General (OCG) implemented a zero-tolerance policy, referring all offending agencies to the DPP. He is attributing the improvements largely to this no-nonsense approach.

Monitoring system

The contractor general also told the committee that his office was able to monitor more than 8,000 contracts last year, up from 330 the previous year.

This, he said, was accomplished by introducing a relatively simple reporting mechanism and requiring all government bodies to submit reports on all projects worth $250,000 and upwards on a quarterly basis.

He estimates that the Government of Jamaica is spending $43 billion per year on approximately 10,000 contracts valued above $250,000.

Of that number, the OCG is currently tracking 8,700 contracts worth $40 billion.