MSET- Poor decision-making costs Petrojam in excess of $67 million for a fence.

Auditor General's Findings

In December 2018, the Auditor General’s Department completed the “Review of Aspects of the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) and a Comprehensive Audit of Petrojam Limited.”

Case Study 3B of that document detailed the sequence of events in which Petrojam initially agreed to contract the NWA to construct a perimeter fence for $29.8 Million dollars.

Subsequently, that arrangement was ended, and an emergency contract was issued to another entity to construct the same fence (with few variations) for $96.8 Million dollars.

Permanent Secretary (current): Carol Palmer

Breach Category: Procurement & Contract Management

Permanent Secretary (at breach): Hillary Alexander

Breach Type: Poor procurement planning

Status: Full Compliance

Last Assessed: January 15, 2021

Year Reported: 2018

Year Resolved: 2021

JAMP Update

JAMP submitted an ATI request to Petrojam seeking documentation to indicate what steps were taken to improve their procurement processes.

Petrojam advised that:
1. Training took place between July 2019 and September 2019 for the Procurement Committee of the Board, the Management Committee and all other staff members. Training was conducted by the Head – Procurement Unit. The presentation was vetted by the Office of Public Procurement Policy (OPPP) at the Ministry of Finance & Public Service (MOFPS) before being presented. (See first link below).
2. The procurement process is quite robust and Petrojam is guided by the Public Procurement Act, 2015. The Unit monitors the use of emergency procurement and ensures it satisfies the criteria established in the Act. The Head of the Unit was changed in 2019.

See second link below for a summary of the appropriate procurement methodologies and thresholds in various circumstances, which was included in the ATI response.