HEARTY HARVEST

Just under 50 per cent of the monetary value of all contracts awarded by HEART/NSTA Trust to SynCon Technologies took place during the period the company’s CEO chaired the board of the state agency.

There is no evidence Edward Gabbidon was involved in any conflict of interest, but the situation has raised questions as to what extent persons should be appointed to key public positions while companies they are attached to are providers of non-exclusive services.

Between October 2006, when it started providing technology services to HEART, and March this year, SynCon won 196 contracts with a cumulative value of approximately $303 million, according to documents the agency supplied in October through an access to information request.

Gabbidon became chairman of HEART on April 3, 2017.

Data HEART submitted to a parliamentary committee in July indicates that since his tenure began, 39 contracts were awarded SynCon, valued at $134.6 million.

That represents roughly 44 per cent of the total monetary value of all contracts awarded to SynCon since the relationship started in 2006.

In the five years leading up to Gabbidon’s appointment, SynCon was awarded 81 contracts valued at approximately $102 million.

Most of the contracts since April 2017 were done through restricted bidding or the single-source procurement methodology. They covered mostly the provision of switches, routers, security appliance and specialised services such as Cisco Call Manager and IP telephony infrastructure.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness, who has responsibility for HEART/NSTA Trust, reappointed Gabbidon in March for another term despite some hesitancy, The Sunday Gleaner understands.

Transparency advocates have argued that under no circumstances should a situation have arisen where a company tied to the board chair of a public entity was receiving contracts from the same agency, especially in circumstances where the service was not exclusive.

One of the reasons HEART was hauled before a parliamentary committee in July was because of Sunday Gleaner reports that revealed conflict-of-interest concerns among procurement officials that SynCon was under consideration for the award of a contract in 2019.

This newspaper had obtained a chain of emails in which chair of the HEART’s procurement committee, Marsha Whyte-Fletcher spoke of a “clear conflict of interest”, and sought advice from the agency’s legal officer, Desrine Pearson.

HEART denied The Sunday Gleaner’s request for the advice, a position it did not take when Parliament’s Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) demanded it.

Pearson said while the observation about a potential conflict of interest was “prudent and reasonable” given the committee’s responsibility, she could not make a determination on whether there was actual conflict of interest.

“The perception of a conflict of interest is what I find most evident in this very sparse information with which I have been provided. I readily find how the public could infer impropriety due to proximity and the relationship the chairman enjoys with both the Trust and SynCon,” she said.

The lawyer added: “I am, however, constrained to take the view that there is actual conflict of interest as the information provided by you has not indicated any means by which the positions he holds were instrumental or connected in any way with the process in question.”

Pearson acknowledged receiving from the procurement committee, a statement of affiliation form submitted by Gabbidon but not a declaration of interest the committee mentioned in its request for advice.

However, Pearson went further.

She pointed to HEART’s code of ethics that defines a conflict of interest as occurring “where a public officer has a private or personal interest sufficient to appear to influence or to appear to be capable of influencing the objective exercise of his official duties”.

According to Section 42 of the Public Procurement Act, a procuring entity “shall exclude a person, firm or entity from procurement processes if the person, firm or entity has an unfair competitive advantage or a conflict of interest that is likely to impair the integrity” of procurement processes.

Under HEART’s procedures, where a conflict of interest arises, and specifically with a member of the board, a report must be made to the board through the chairman

“Since the issue is with the chairman himself, it is expected that once this potential or perceived conflict arises, the requisite notification would have been given not just to him personally but also the company with the successful bid – SynCon – with the directive that such a conflict, as per Section 6.0 of the handbook, must be addressed,” she stated.

Pearson said she did not get any information from the procurement committee to confirm whether a report was submitted.

In an April statement, HEART declared that the concern from its procurement staff was “standard procedure” and that there was “no interference” from the board or its head, especially because the value of each contract did not rise to the $30 million threshold for consideration by the board.

HEART denied a Gleaner access to information request for all board minutes or subcommittee minutes in which any matter relating to SynCon was discussed between January 1, 2015 and May 20, 2021.

The request was submitted on May 22, 2021.

jovan.johnson@gleanerjm.com