EDITORIAL

Last week’s editorial barely scratched the surface of  the controversial issues surrounding petty contracts. Much more remains to be said especially at this juncture when the new government is planning to address these issues and put in place measures and guidelines that will prevent the abuse and misuse perpetrated in recent decades.

Chief Auditor Sonia Webster in her informative and thorough 2001 Report points out that the process of preparing and issuing petty contracts is handled almost unilaterally by the Construction Unit of the Public Works Department (PWD). The absence of internal controls creates a situation prone to abuse and “individuals who work within the system have expressed the view that project specifications and requirements were being adjusted to include unnecessary works leading to inflated evaluations”.

The Report disclosed that the Department’s field surveyors are excluded from the process and this is particularly disturbing because there is no independent source which can be used by the quantity surveyors to verify that the measurements and specifications received from the Construction Unit are representative of the project. “This creates an environment where exaggerated or inaccurate specifications are likely to be undetected.”
Other findings revealed that employees of the Public Works Department were beneficiaries of contracts issued by the department, and a number of the employees of PWD either own or have shares in construction or similar companies. When the Chief Auditor decided to delve further into the petty contracts issued during 2000 and 2001 to determine as far as possible whether they were completed as required by the contracts she was faced with some very unpleasant surprises. “The Sabbath Hill project was included in the inspection and was visited by the Audit Team with a member of the PWD staff. The 2001 contracts issued for this project indicated a total of 2,718 feet of road was to be paved. The measurements taken reflected that only 1,741 feet were paved. Payments were however made in full to the nine petty contractors who were assigned to this project.” When investigating the Cox Heath project the Chief Auditor discovered that areas identified for road paving on the contracts were not paved and areas not slated for paving were paved. No record of these changes could be found at PWD and it was noted that payments were made for work which was not performed.