Why Carol Palmer won’t find Petrojam documents
All hell broke loose as Grindley’s ‘emergency’ came to light
THE MUDSLIDE of irregularities that has cascaded on to Jamaica’s scandal-laced oil refinery, Petrojam, since 2016 was triggered by a series of meddlesome interventions by senior executives, and former general manager Floyd Grindley’s short-circuiting of a $29.8-million contract falls in line with the company’s culture of excess and overreach.
Grindley ordered that the contract with the National Works Agency (NWA) to construct a perimeter wall at the company’s Marcus Garvey Drive offices be dumped, and instead be given to Construction Solutions Limited, a decision that would later cost Jamaican taxpayers more than three times the value of the original deal.
Construction Solutions, whose directors are Vincent Taylor, Muriel Taylor, and Herma Miller, of Bridgeport, Edgewater, and Garveymeade, all in St Catherine, received more than half a billion dollars worth of contracts for bushclearing and drain-cleaning in the lead-up to the St Mary South East by-election in 2017, which the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) Dr Norman Dunn won.
The Sunday Gleaner was informed that China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) submitted a proposal to build the wall, through the NWA, and it was signed off by two representatives each from CHEC and the NWA on November 8, 2016, according
to documents obtained by The Sunday Gleaner.
Sunday Gleaner sources advised that typically for projects totalling $20m, approvals follow a three-tier process. According to the contact, the first stage is done at the sector committee, and if approved, the matter transitions to the infrastructure committee. Approval at the two levels would then see the proposal sent to Cabinet for approval.
“Prior to Mr Grindley, the project was signed off by CHEC and the NWA. Negotiations, however, started before Grindley’s tenure, but the proposal did not go to the sector committee, as it was near $30m. I can tell you that Grindley was only on the job for 22 days when he intervened and stopped the negotiations and ordered that the existing arrangement be discarded and emergency methods used,” Sunday Gleaner sources said.
According to the sources, Grindley’s edict that Construction Solutions be given the contract came after he, along with then Petrojam employees, attended a meeting at the NWA in November 2016. The two were Fabian Campbell and Handel Lamey. Campbell has since resigned from Petrojam, but Lamey remains an employee.
The NWA’s infrastructure committee was chaired at the time by Local Government and Community Development Minister Desmond McKenzie.
The source said: “The direct contracting (sole-source) methodology was used to select the contractor under emergency procurement, although no emergency was stated. It is to be noted that the procurement was not approved by Cabinet, as no request for approval was sent to Cabinet.
“When all hell broke loose and the matter became public, I can tell you that [ **** name redacted] and his two close-protection security officers went to Petrojam and they shredded documents like crazy, nearly all night. So that is why Permanent Secretary Carol Palmer will find no document of Cabinet approval. It did not even reach Cabinet stage,” said The Sunday Gleaner’s impeccable source.
“The contract was just discarded, just like that, because someone had the power to do it. You think they have any respect for their own prime minister?” said the source.
DOCUMENT MISSING
Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was informed last week by Palmer that she was unable to find any documents to support the switch from the NWA to Construction Solutions.
“I asked and there is no documentation that I have been able to find to provide the justification for the change, nor does there exist anything that gives me the process that was entered into to arrive at the change of provider of the service, nor is there anything that describes that it is an emergency,” Palmer told the PAC last week.
She revealed, too, that she has not been able to find the Cabinet submission for the contract for the perimeter wall at Petrojam’s Marcus Garvey Drive refinery.
“Because under the procurement rules, it would have had to go to Cabinet. I am still searching, because it raises the question, ‘How do you reasonably move from $29m – call it $30 million, if you will – to these monies’?” she added.
“It would have had to come through the Ministry [of Energy]. Where is the Cabinet decision? You can do emergency procurement up to $100 million. Where is the emergency that was established? These are questions I am trying to answer for myself,” Palmer added.
Construction Solutions has seven shareholders, with at least one living overseas.
An audit by the Auditor General’s Department found that Construction Solutions was engaged using the “direct contracting emergency” method, and that the switch of contractors ended up costing taxpayers approximately $67m more than originally budgeted. Even though the scope of works was varied, the additional 200 metres of fencing and other modifications should have cost only $9.7m more.
Grindley, who is now seeking $40m for wrongful dismissal and reputational damage, was also repeatedly warned by a subordinate that he was breaching the Government’s procurement guidelines, even before he gave instructions for Petrojam to discard the $29.8m bid and hire Construction Solutions.
Construction Solutions was paid $96.8m, which was more than three times NWA/CHEC’s sum.