Lease of Digicel Building for NaRRA goes against legislation, says Golding

 

 

Opposition Leader Mark Golding has argued that the government is in breach of the National Resilience and Reconstruction Authority (NaRRA) legislation following its decision to lease office space from Digicel.

 

The government has announced a scaling back of the space that is to be rented at the Digicel Building in downtown Kingston to house the NaRRA headquarters, after initially saying NaRRA had entered a five-year lease agreement for its new headquarters, at a rate of US$726,000, or J$115 million per annum. 

 

It also indicated that the Digicel Building was selected as it was designed and constructed to withstand multiple environmental hazards and incorporates structural and engineering features intended to support resilience. 

 

But Mr. Golding believes the deal goes against the principles set in the NaRRA legislation. 

 

"It's important that we move from first principles, and the legislation which established NaRRA, which was passed into law earlier this year, in Section 4 (4) of that Act says, and I'll quote: The authority, which is NaRRA, shall, if lawful and practicable, utilise existing capacity, resources, facilities, and systems in government, which may be appropriately co-opted for the purposes of this Act. So the law which established NaRRA expects the government to use public assets wherever possible for NaRRA to carry out its statutory functions," he contended. 

 

Mr. Golding said the government must disclose what efforts were made to find suitable premises already owned by the state.

 

Speaking in Kingston on Wednesday, Prime Minister Dr. Andrew Holness admitted that the public outrage had forced the government to review the lease agreement with Digicel and scale down the required office space. 

 

He said the NaRRA headquarters will be housed on one floor, as opposed to two, under the new arrangement. 

 

Prime Minister Holness warned, however, that this decision will affect the pace of the roll-out of projects, but said it was the correct decision to be pursued, having listened to feedback.

 

He said while there have been suggestions about various government buildings that could instead be used, the reality is that these are plagued with persistent structural issues or not purpose-built and functional for the required operations.