Kingston, Jamaica; August 8, 2012 – The rigidly enforced Zero Tolerance Policy of the Office of the Contractor General (OCG), which was first introduced in October 2006 by Contractor General Greg Christie to combat Public Bodies which were refusing to submit their Quarterly Contract Award (QCA) Reports to the OCG, has once again succeeded in producing another record 100% submission compliance rate for the second Quarter of 2012.

All 194 Public Bodies, whose contract award activities are currently being monitored by the OCG, were declared fully compliant in filing their 2012 second Quarter QCA Reports to the OCG on or before the prescribed deadline date of July 31, 2012.

Except for the first Quarter of 2012 when only one Public Body – the Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries – was delinquent in submitting its QCA Report to the OCG, this latest performance on the part of the country’s Procuring Public Bodies means that the OCG has now recorded an unprecedented 100% QCA submission compliance rate for thirteen (13) consecutive quarters running.

Before the institution of the OCG’s Zero Tolerance Policy, the highest Public Body QCA compliance rate that was ever recorded by the OCG, for any quarter, was 13%.

In congratulating the heads of the country’s almost 200 Procuring Public Bodies, the Contractor General conveyed both words of praise and challenge.

“Once again, I would like to publicly commend our Permanent Secretaries and the Chief Accountable Officers of the country’s 194 Procuring Public Bodies for cooperating with the OCG in its continuing efforts to lay the foundation for a new culture of discipline and probity in the award of Government contracts in Jamaica”.

“The journey, however, is far from complete. We must now all bring to bear the same level of leadership, professionalism and commitment to integrity and compliance, that has been exhibited, in a concerted effort to eliminate corruption, impropriety and irregularity from the country’s procurement, contract award, licensing and State asset divestment processes”.

“With the perception of corruption in Jamaica now at an all-time high, it is critical that no stone should be left unturned in the shared quest of the OCG and the country’s Public Body Heads to restore probity, integrity and public confidence in the above-referenced Public Sector processes”, said Mr. Christie.

The OCG’s QCA Report regime was conceived and implemented in May 2006 by the Contractor General as a major plank of his then strategic plan to secure a marked improvement in probity, accountability and transparency in Government contracting and licensing in Jamaica.

Today, the computer technology based regime has, among other things, allowed the OCG, which has limited human resources, to better scrutinize and identify a wide range of irregularities in the Public Body contract award process, and to make public, on the OCG’s website, the award particulars of the over 11,000 small to medium sized contracts that are awarded by the Government each year since May 1, 2006.

The contracts, which, to date, number more than 63,000, and which range in value from $250,000 to $10 million, currently have an aggregated value of more than $79 billion.