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Police still await 50 cars from O’Brien’s

Published:Thursday | October 24, 2019 | 1:28 AM

More than two years after several missed deadlines by O’Brien’s International Car Sales and Rentals Limited to supply 200 pre-owned vehicles to the police force, and with a scaled-down arrangement to provide half that number, the Government is still awaiting 50 of the units.

At yesterday’s Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC), Diane McIntosh, permanent secretary in the Ministry of National Security, reported that the car sales company had pledged a new deadline in November 2019 to hand over the vehicles to the police force.

McIntosh was at pains to point out that the ministry had followed all procedures in the wake of the breakdown of the contract, including mediation.

“It is in our interest to walk the mediation process to the best of our ability to be able to get the full value of the amount of money and that which taxpayers have contributed to in respect of the contract. We have received 50 per cent of what we have agreed on,” she said.

“It’s been a difficult contract, but we have been managing,” McIntosh said.

However, chairman of the PAAC, Wykeham McNeill, contended that Jamaican taxpayers had paid some $213.4 million to O’Brien’s for supplying the vehicles, yet it had taken more than two years for the company to deliver 50 vehicles.

He raised questions about the age of the used vehicles to be delivered to the force, noting that they could pose problems for the police.

But McIntosh indicated that the Government would not suffer a financial loss if all the vehicles have been delivered.

However, McNeill challenged that assertion, noting that the Jamaican people had lost “big time” in that the money paid over was not being used to their benefit while awaiting the delivery of the vehicles.

“If you go to buy a three-year-old car and you go to buy a five-year-old car, it is two different prices altogether,” he quipped.

But committee member Dr Norman Dunn insisted that based on the nominal value, the Government would not have suffered a loss.

edmond.campbell@gleanerjm.com