Mark Wil­son

Green pa­pers, white pa­pers, draft bills and com­mit­tees: for ten years and more, T&T has de­lib­er­at­ed pub­lic pro­cure­ment. Scan­dals and al­le­ga­tions make for a live­ly me­dia. Uff and Pi­ar­co en­quiries were more grip­ping than the day­time soaps. Per­fect gov­er­nance? That's still a fair way off.

Things must be dire if Tri­nis ask Ja­maicans for ad­vice. The Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil for the Con­struc­tion In­dus­try's pro­cure­ment group has done just that. Last month, it held a live­ly ten-hour ses­sion with Greg Christie, who un­til No­vem­ber was Ja­maica's high-pro­file con­trac­tor gen­er­al. In Jan­u­ary last year, it was the par­lia­men­tary joint se­lect com­mit­tee on pro­cure­ment which called for Christie.

So what does Greg have to of­fer? Not a graft-free par­adise. Last year, T&T ranked 80 on Trans­paren­cy In­ter­na­tion­al's cor­rup­tion per­cep­tions in­dex; Ja­maica placed at 83. Two years ear­li­er, an Amer­i­c­as Barom­e­ter cor­rup­tion poll gave Ja­maica the sec­ond-worst score in the hemi­sphere; on­ly T&T ranked low­er. A 2010 sur­vey ranked cor­rup­tion ahead of crime and vi­o­lence as "the most neg­a­tive thing about Ja­maica."

Christie has been a me­dia star in Ja­maica since start­ing his sev­en-year term as con­trac­tor gen­er­al in 2005. Be­fore that, he was a vice-pres­i­dent of US-owned Kaiser Alu­minum, based for eight years in the USA.

He al­so knows this coun­try well. From 1985 to 1988, he taught at the Hugh Wood­ing Law School and the UWI law fac­ul­ty. Karen Tesheira, Seenath Jairam, Her­bert Vol­ney and the late Bar­ba­dos prime min­is­ter David Thomp­son are for­mer class­mates or stu­dents from an ear­li­er stretch of teach­ing and study­ing in Bar­ba­dos, as is le­gal lu­mi­nary BC Pires.

Es­tab­lished by the Sea­ga gov­ern­ment in the 1980s, the of­fice of con­trac­tor gen­er­al in Ja­maica has pow­ers of in­ves­ti­ga­tion equiv­a­lent to those of a supreme court judge. The 200-odd min­istries, agen­cies and de­part­ments must re­port to his 60 staff on con­tracts and li­cences.

There are 11,000 each year, with a to­tal val­ue equiv­a­lent to 20 per cent of Ja­maica's an­nu­al bud­get. Where some­thing seems amiss, doc­u­men­ta­tion can be scru­ti­nised, wit­ness­es ex­am­ined un­der oath. Christie com­plet­ed 44 spe­cial in­ves­ti­ga­tions; this month, his for­mer of­fice pub­lished a 437-page re­port on sus­pect­ed sham con­trac­tors used by Ja­maica's Na­tion­al Hous­ing Trust.

Christie saw pub­lic in­for­ma­tion as a strong shot in the fight against cor­rup­tion: in sev­en years, his of­fice is­sued 267 me­dia re­leas­es and 25 let­ters to the ed­i­tor.

Al­though the con­trac­tor gen­er­al is legal­ly re­quired to "en­sure" prop­er con­tracts, Christie had no pow­ers to block ap­par­ent wrong­do­ing. The for­mer gov­ern­ment of Bruce Gold­ing in No­vem­ber 2010, right­ly or wrong­ly, ig­nored a rec­om­men­da­tion to halt the ten­der process for a float­ing stor­age and re­gasi­fi­ca­tion unit for LNG.

And there is no pow­er to pros­e­cute. Find­ings of a spe­cial in­ves­ti­ga­tion may be re­ferred to the po­lice for fur­ther work, or to the di­rec­tor of pub­lic pros­e­cu­tions for le­gal ac­tion. In Feb­ru­ary 2011, Christie told Ja­maica's Par­lia­ment that his of­fice had re­ferred 40 cas­es over three years to the DPP, Paula Llewellyn. Not one re­sult­ed in a pros­e­cu­tion.

Win­ston Ri­ley, chair of the JCC civ­il so­ci­ety pro­cure­ment group, says T&T can learn from the ex­pe­ri­ence of a reg­u­la­tor who re­ports to Par­lia­ment, rather than to a Cab­i­net min­is­ter, who has strong in­ves­ti­ga­to­ry pow­ers, and a track record in sys­tems and staff train­ing. In­deed, Ja­maica's con­trac­tor gen­er­al is ful­ly in­de­pen­dent. By law, he is "not sub­ject to the di­rec­tion or con­trol of any oth­er per­son or au­thor­i­ty."

Christie's record in of­fice was "ter­rif­ic," says Car­olyn Gomes of Ja­maicans for Jus­tice. "Be­fore, there was on­ly 20 per cent com­pli­ance with the re­port­ing re­quire­ment. He pushed that to 100 per cent." Gold­ing says Christie is "no­body's stooge" and "a mod­el of in­cor­rupt­ibil­i­ty." The Pri­vate Sec­tor As­so­ci­a­tion of Ja­maica says he "trans­formed" the of­fice.

Some have a dif­fer­ent as­sess­ment. Ever­ald Warm­ing­ton, a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, was told last week that the DPP would not fol­low through on a re­quest to pros­e­cute him for al­leged per­jury. He calls Christie an "id­iot" and a "men­tal case." Col­in Camp­bell, a for­mer in­for­ma­tion min­is­ter who was al­so re­ferred to the DPP by Christie, ac­cus­es him of "ar­ro­gance, ego­tism and lack of es­prit de corps."

Ro­bust com­ments are part of free pub­lic de­bate. But there are more men­ac­ing threats in a coun­try where gang lead­ers fight over con­struc­tion work in ur­ban gar­risons. Christie–and his wife–need full po­lice pro­tec­tion, even af­ter leav­ing of­fice.

On Jan­u­ary 2, Christie's im­me­di­ate suc­ces­sor as act­ing con­trac­tor gen­er­al, Craig Beres­ford, re­ferred the en­tire Cab­i­net of Ja­maica to the DPP for fail­ing over eight months to com­ply with re­quests for doc­u­men­ta­tion on four projects. Some lawyers ar­gue that these re­quests tres­passed on the con­sti­tu­tion­al tra­di­tion of Cab­i­net con­fi­den­tial­i­ty.

Llewellyn's re­sponse? "We are tak­ing our usu­al ob­jec­tive pro­fes­sion­al ap­proach." Christie's suc­ces­sor–an­nounced last week–is Dirk Har­ri­son, se­nior deputy di­rec­tor of pub­lic pros­e­cu­tions and head of the DPP's an­ti-cor­rup­tion unit. An "ac­com­plished pro­fes­sion­al" and "hard work­er," says Llewellyn. "I har­bour no doubt that he will be a com­mit­ted con­trac­tor gen­er­al," says Christie.