Contractor-General maintaining interest in Caricel contract issue

Contractor-General Dirk Harrison has confirmed that he has not closed the book on the controversial issuing of licences to Symbiote Investments, which trades as telecommunications company Caricel.

He made that assertion Wednesday night on TVJ's All Angles.

Caricel last month withdrew its appeal against the Supreme Court ruling denying its application for a Judicial Review.

Caricel said the appeal was withdrawn after attorneys for the Spectrum Management Authority and the Office of Utilities Regulation declared that the company was not under investigation for breaching its licences.

The Contractor General, in his interview with Dionne Jackson Miller on All Angles, affirmed that matter was still on the radar as far as his office was concerned.

Even after a licence is issued, he said, “the Office (of the Contractor General) can look into the revocation, can look into the implementation of a contract, so we still can scrutinize what is happening presently, in terms of the contract, even if it is being revoked.”

That would be done, he insisted, “once we have a little more information”.

He was indeed receiving pertinent information requested of the Technology Ministry, which has portfolio responsibility for the telecommunications sector, he confirmed.

Due diligence

Mr. Harrison also stressed the need to strengthen the system of due diligence in the public sector, observing that in the past some persons have rushed the due diligence process to satisfy investors or before the Office of the Contractor General has taken an interest in the matter.

“It is not just training of procurement officers, it is the parliamentarians who need to change and become more mature in terms of what is done,” he said.

Asked whether he was seeing signs of that “increasing maturity on the horizon,” he responded, “Not anytime soon.”