"Identify and blacklist" those involved in Petrojam scandal - says political commentator

Pressure is mounting on the Government to recover money which was misspent at the state-owned oil refinery Petrojam.

Political commentator, Dr. Paul Ashley, says Prime Minister Andrew Holness, must use all legal and other means to have the money repaid.

It's among the decisive steps he says the Prime Minister will have to take to manage the fallout from the Petrojam scandal.

A report by the Auditor General's Office has highlighted human resource and procurement breaches, billions in unaccounted for oil, lack of  transparency in fuel pricing and waste of  public funds on lavish parties.

Dr. Ashley says all persons who received contracts in breach of  the rules should be identified and blacklisted.

“I think that it is incumbent on the Prime Minister and the powers in the interest  of full disclosure, to identify the persons who were the beneficianrs. They should be identified   and there should be some tabulation of the ill gotten gains. The reason for doing this, is that these people should not be allowed to tender for government work in the future, until some restitution is made.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Ashley wants persons to be criminally charged for deviating from the government's procurement guidelines.

“These are potentially financial crimes. This is what you call corruption. The ignoring of the procurment guidelines is a serious thing. Because it involves substantial costs to the tax payer . I think we should criminalise these deviations…(and) that individuals, if they don’t pay the fine, they should be sent to jail,” he said.