Veira, JBDC settle yearlong contract dispute

Valerie Veira’s extension as head of the Jamaica Business Development Corporation (JBDC) has been settled, despite the lack of an explanation from the Government for why the board last year swung, in five days, from approving two years to approving one.

The Aubyn Hill-run Industry, Investment and Commerce Ministry, under which the JBDC falls, has not responded to Gleaner questions emailed on October 18 on news that two years has now been agreed.

Veira’s industrial relations consultant, Vincent Morrison, said his client signed the contract about a month ago.

“I’ve heard from Veira that the matter was settled. She has signed a new contract for two years,” he said.

Veira’s previous contract ended on October 4, 2022.

The new contract will run from October 2022 to October 2024, when her leadership of the agency, since it was established in 2001, is expected to end.

In March, Hill said his ministry was awaiting an opinion from the solicitor general in the Attorney General’s Chambers. Morrison later said the JBDC board chairman, Stephanie Sterling, made a similar statement to his during a meeting.

However, Morrison said he has not received an update from the chairman.

“The key thing here is that Veira is happy. Her contract issue has been settled and it has been settled on the basis of principle, and I’m happy about that,” he said.

Since the matter became public in March, the Sterling-led board has yet to tell Jamaicans why it conducted a second vote to revise its position.

The chairman and the ministry have declined to say what prompted the calling of a special meeting for October 3, 2022, where the board revised its decision made just five days earlier.

Veira insisted that she submitted a signed two-year contract to the chairman, based on a request of the chairman on September 28, 2022 during their meeting to agree terms in line with the board’s initial decision earlier that day.

However, the chairman did not sign that contract and Veira said she got an amended document on November 1, with a one-year extension.

Veira wrote to Sterling questioning, among other things, whether it was appropriate for the decision on an alternative contract “with a substantial amendment” to be finalised without discussion and agreement by both parties, and that, given contract and Jamaica’s labour laws, she had started a two-year contract on October 5 “even if you have not signed that contract which you instructed me to prepare”.

It was also discovered that Veira was not paid a salary for the period October 2022 to February 2023.

Sterling later wrote JBDC’s Deputy CEO, Harold Davis, saying she was not aware of that issue and indicated that, although a ‘new’ contract was being negotiated, “in the interim, the CEO should be paid on a monthly basis at the salary under her previous contract”.

Veira started getting paid shortly after.

The JBDC, a limited liability company fully owned by the government, is the premier state agency providing support services such as research, product development and capacity building, to micro, small and medium-size enterprises.

jovan.johnson@gleanerjm.com