The procurement of the Government Employees’ Administrative Services Only (GEASO) Health Insurance Scheme JA$2 billion/per annum contract and, particularly, the Ministry of Finance and Planning’s recommendation that the contract should be awarded to Life of Jamaica Ltd. (LOJ), and the endorsement on May 30, 2007 of that recommendation by the National Contracts Commission (NCC), have been the subject of considerable public debate in recent times.
The recommendation that the contract should be awarded to LOJ came after the annual contract was put to public competitive tender in late 2006 for the first time since 1995. Previously, the contract had been repeatedly renewed each year by the Government on an uncompetitive basis and, on each such occasion, the award was made to one carrier, namely Blue Cross of Jamaica.
The Government’s uncompetitive annual awards of the GEASO contract to Blue Cross of Jamaica were made in violation of the Contractor General Act and the Government’s own procurement procedures and guidelines.
The recent debate which has ensued over the matter has centered primarily around certain charges which were publicly made, during June 2007, that the tender evaluation process for the award of the new contract to LOJ was “flawed”. The Office of the Contractor General (OCG) was formally advised by the then Minister of Finance and Planning, on July 3, 2007, that it was for this reason that a decision was taken by the then Cabinet to establish a committee to review the allegedly “flawed” tender evaluation process. It was reported that the Review Committee was to be composed of Ministry of Finance officials and GEASO Monitoring Committee representatives.
The Office of the Contractor General (OCG), which has been actively monitoring the subject GEASO contract procurement, has consistently held the view that the recommendation to award the contract to LOJ was one which was properly made and that the charges of a ‘flawed’ procurement process were unfounded, unsubstantiated and without merit.
Further, the OCG has also expressed the view that the establishment of the Review Committee, and the participation of GEASO Monitoring Committee representatives in the tender evaluation decision-making process of the procurement, is unlawful since it runs counter to the provisions of the Government procurement procedures and guidelines and the Contractor General Act.
It is essentially for these reasons that the OCG has therefore publicly communicated its strong objections to the actions of the Government in reviewing not only the original Ministry of Finance recommendation to award the contract to LOJ, but also the NCC’s formal endorsement of that recommendation.
Having regard to the very serious public interest issues which the GEASO contract procurement have raised, a decision was taken by the OCG to conduct a formal assessment of the tender invitation and tender evaluation processes of the procurement and to produce a formal Report thereon and submit same to the Parliament of Jamaica.
The OCG’s 81 page Report on the matter was submitted to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate, under cover of a letter which was dated October 19, 2007.
The Report was tabled in the House of Representatives on October 23, 2007 and in the Senate on November 9, 2007. Acting in the public’s interest, the Report was also published by the Contractor General on the OCG’s website, effective November 9, 2007.
The OCG is confident that by publishing its Report, clarity, understanding and transparency will be brought to bear upon all of the pertinent issues which have so far attended this major JA$2 billion per year Government contract procurement.
The OCG is also confident that its Report will demonstrate that the Ministry of Finance’s recommendation to award the new GEASO contract to LOJ, and the NCC’s endorsement of that recommendation, were meritorious, proper, lawful and rule-compliant and, accordingly, should not be interfered with by the Government.
Please click on the eighth link below to read the OCG’s GEASO Report in its entirety. You may also read copies of the other public disclosures which the OCG has made on the GEASO issue by clicking on the other links.
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