Warmington claims OCG run by 'another mental case'

CONTROVERSIAL SOUTH West St Catherine Member of Parliament Everald Warmington has ripped into the Office of the Contractor General (OCG) yet again, declaring it is being run by "another mental case".

Warmington was responding to suggestions from the OCG that Constituency Development Fund (CDF) projects were hidden from the contract oversight body for the period 2008 to 2012.

It is the second time Warmington has used the characterisation when speaking about the leadership of the OCG, as, after much public condemnation in 2010, he was forced to withdraw his labelling of then Contractor General Greg Christie as an "overzealous idiot" and a "mental case".

In his apology at the time, Warmington said his remarks were made "in the heat of the moment" after Christie had announced an investigation into a construction company for which the parliamentarian had once been a director, as well as whether he had received improper benefits.

Warmington was vindicated in that case in January last year after Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn opted not to pursue charges, leading him to, in effect, take back his apology.

Later in the year, current Contractor General Dirk Harrison indicated in his 2013 Annual Report that an audit done by the OCG unveiled scores of projects implemented by National Works Agency parish offices which were not previously disclosed to his office.

numbers revised

Moveta Munroe, director of the CDF Programme Management Unit, told members of the CDF committee yesterday that the OCG had revised the number of undisclosed projects from 63 to 48.

However, this sparked a sharp response from committee chairman Dr DK Duncan, who charged that "there are no secret projects. If there are any, I would like to know".

Duncan received support from Warmington, who contended that all projects came to the committee and had been approved.

"They are in the minutes. They came to the committee so there is nothing secret about them," he added.

Indicating that the projects mentioned by the OCG were for economic enablement, Warmington questioned: "Where in God's Earth you are going to get contract for economic enablement?

He said economic enablement was used to assist individuals in the small and micro enterprise sector.

According to Warmington, a former chairman of the CDF committee, for economic enablement projects, "a request is submitted, there are invoices and requisitions, and, therefore, nothing could be secret about it."

Declared Warmington: "What we have here is another mental case. We keep on having mental cases, people with mental challenges in charge of ... who come up with this ridiculous, stupid, nonsense."