So National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NaRRA) has started with neither bang nor whimper but a loud, smelly belch.
Or has it? Started I mean? I ask because the 40-million-dollar man (Steve Austin is green, no pun intended, with envy; in 1973, when The six-million-dollar man first aired, US$6m could only buy J$5.4m) said NaRRA should be “up and running” by the end of the year.
Really? Seriously?
I thought the plan was for NaRRA to be the engine of speedy recovery from Melissa. The 40-million-dollar man was appointed effective June 1 (so he gone over $13 million already?). All now, NaRRA don’t start work?
Something’s cockeyed somewhere!
Yet NaRRA has had time to lease two floors in a privately owned high-rise building at the incomprehensible expense to the public purse of US$725,000.00 per annum for five years? Hang on a sec. At J$160.00 to US$1.00 that’s six times five; carry di 3; ok, I give up, my calculator says J$116 MILLION per year or FIVE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY MILLION DOLLARS over the five year lease.
Why a five year lease? We nah recover from Melissa sooner?
Some perspective: Government committed $700 million to agriculture recovery but some government official commits almost $600 million to lease offices for people to push paper?
C’mon man!
And don’t start on my “push paper” analysis. According to NaRRA Act, section 4, NaRRA’s purpose is to:
– consolidate and prioritize projects;
– establish projects’ performance indicators and reporting standards;
– procure goods, works and services;
– establish project tracking systems;
– issue directives and operational guidelines;
– cause projects to include standards, specifications for climate and disaster resilience (a.k.a. “performance indicators”?);
– establish project management, compliance, monitoring reporting and risk management SYSTEMS (i.e. not actually manage anything);
– keep a register of approved projects;
PAPER. PUSHING!
When news broke of this massive Nicodemus commitment of government resources, Category 5 public blow-back was immediate. Government leapt on its political bicycle and started rapidly backpedalling.
If it hadn’t been so embarrassing for her and me, it would’ve been hilarious watching the intelligent but clearly distressed Dana Dixon waffling her way through a post-cabinet briefing on this egregious waste of public resources.
According to Distressed Dana, the rationale for the excessive spend was:
“They wanted a building that could be moved into very quickly….”
Wha, wha, WHAT? So cost was irrelevant? Only immediate availability needed? Somebody must be HIGH! Not only are buildings available all over, there’s a magnificent two-bedroom ground-floor apartment Old BC would love to buy for our old age. But guess what? We’re already old and can’t afford it. Why’s price suddenly no object when you’re spending other people’s money?
Distressed Dana appeared to evolve into Desperate Dana: “….A building that was also resilient; you’re doing, you know, reconstruction work.”
Stop it! What reconstruction work is NaRRA doing (by year-end)? How many back-hoes, cement bags or steel bars will NaRRA acquire? How many construction (oops, sorry, “re-construction”) carpenters, masons, foremen or labourers will NaRRA employ?
Exactly what sort of reconstruction work was planned for inside the building?
Desperate Dana wasn’t finished digging a deep, dark hole: “You needed to have a building that was resilient. This was a building that met earthquake and hurricane requirements. You needed to have the amount of space that was necessary also. And so those were really the considerations that went into their search based on the information that I have.”
I cannot…. EVERYBODY prefers to work in an earthquake and hurricane “resilient” building. But it can’t be that you lease over-priced, excessive space within which to push paper just because it’s “resilient”. And don’t forget quickly available.
Desperate Dana spoke of “their search”. She also said “ From what they reported they looked at many spaces but in terms of finding one that ticked all the boxes that was the best space they could find.”
Which other spaces did they inspect? How many?
Desperate Dana: “I don’t know what other spaces they looked at.”
Why not? Desperate Dana also said “We heard the outrage and we really did respond very quickly last night to get information on what was behind this; why was this chosen…”
But you didn’t ask where else they looked?
Desperate Dana threw the 40-million-dollar man under the bus by announcing that none of herself, PM, or cabinet knew of the lease agreement before it happened.
So who oversees NaRRA? To whom does 40-million-dollar man report? Clearly not to his Minister or cabinet! It’s obvious the famous oversight body (JAMRROC) is toothless, witless, powerless or incompetent. NaRRA, spectacularly unusual for a Statutory Authority, has no board. So is the 40-million-dollar man allowed to spend our money whimsically without accountability? And to do so long before NaRRA is “up and running”?
So if this is crawling or walking can you imagine where our money will go when it’s “up and running”?
If Desperate Dana is correct, and we’ve no reason to doubt her, then, before NaRRA is “up and running”, somebody at NaRRA (if not the 40-million-dollar man then who?) has, without the portfolio minister’s or cabinet’s knowledge, committed Five hundred and eighty million of taxpayer dollars to be paid to a private corporation. The massive over-expenditure was to house a new statutory agency that seems to have no oversight; no plan; no purpose save for a vaguely defined mission to speed up Melissa recovery projects. The decision had to be swiftly reversed. Surely, somebody’s pay cheque should be endangered? Or is there a higher threshold for accountability?
On Tweeter, eminent Jamaican Journalist Damion Mitchell opined:
“That the NaRRA lease wasn’t required to go through public procurement or Cabinet approval means the ultimate overseer was the responsible minister, who happens to be the Prime Minister. This development is yet the most glaring example why the government can no longer scoff at calls for a proper, lawful oversight body.”
Or for what our governance system woefully lacks – ACCOUNTABILITY!
When he discovered, through public outcry according to Desperate Dana, about the over-expenditure, PM ordered a space (but unspecified dollar) scale down. Btw, how was a legal lease so easily changed? He added a thinly veiled threat that less space means slowing the rollout of reconstruction projects. Sounded petty; childish; and/or vindictive didn’t it?
How does less space for paper-pushing slow re-construction rollout? Why? Lookie here: Not one reconstruction job was being done in that building. Not even monitoring of works can be done thoroughly from that building. What can be done from NaRRA headquarters needs minimum space, minimal staff and maximum computer/AI assist ance. Most necessary staff can work from home. Why create expensive new bureaucracy to reduce bureaucracy?
I’ll tell you why. NaRRA’s true purpose is to win the next election for JLP. If we approach 2030 with Jamaica’s macro- and micro-economies not fully recovered from Melissa and growing like crab grass, PNP could cruise into Jamaica House without trying. But, it appears likely, from NaRRA’s five-year legislative life; its deliberately expansive accommodations; and no-hurry start-up approach that Melissa recovery is only peripheral. Its tentacles might be intended to extend to circumvention of procurement rules for ALL Government projects.
Things that make you go hmmmmmm….
PNP knows this hence its ham-fisted attempts to block NaRRA at every turn. This could be why a former Army Chief of Staff, National Security Adviser and Police Commissioner has been paid a small fortune to head NaRRA. JLP can’t afford standard bureaucratic delays or obstruction based on standard bureaucratic caution.
PNP can’t afford NaRRA to succeed.
It’s that simple. I’ve told you before. I’m telling you again. Save for one outlier (2011; when corruption was national rather than individual) elections are won on the economy. Jamaican voters habitually turn blind eyes to standard foraging at the public trough especially if they get a share. But 2009/10’s backing of Dudus vs USA’s lawful extradition request was a bridge too far. Voters booted JLP. By 2030, either we feel Melissa recovery in our pockets AND all grand announcements (new hospitals; water storage facilities; infrastructural transformation) are completed or JLP gets the old Spanish Archer (“El Bow”).
So it’s 40-million-dollar man to the rescue!
Peace and Love.
Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com
