Opinion: As Hurricane Melissa Fast-Tracks Jamaica’s Aid and Procurement Processes, It Should Speed Up Transparency and Oversight Too.
Yesterday, the United States committed another US$10 million in aid to help Jamaica recover from Hurricane Melissa, bringing its total contribution to US$22 million.
It seems like the largest single donation to Jamaica by an individual country so far, but there’s no way for the public to know for sure.
This shouldn’t be the case.
There should be a live tally of all donations, and the public should immediately be able to know how much has come in and, and within three months at least, where it’s going.
Instead, at a Nov. 6 press briefing, Information Minister Dana Morris Dixon said the “huge spreadsheet of everything that comes in” at the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) will be given “at the appropriate time” as new head, Commander Alvin Gayle, gets more integrated into ODPEM.
Speaking at the same press briefing, Gayle said a subcommittee would provide oversight to the monies coming in and that, “somewhere down the road those figures will become public.”
Video: Information Minister Sen. Dana Morris Dixon and ODPEM Head Commander Alvin Gayle answer press questions on Nov. 6
When exactly is “the appropriate time” if not now? When exactly is “somewhere down the road?”
The Jamaican government doesn’t exactly have the best track record of delivering full information, much less in a timely manner. So, despite these assurances, there should still be cause for concern.
If the government was so invested in transparency and accountability, the government’s donation site, SupportJamaica.gov.jm, would have been built with a publicly-available tracker of amounts raised from the outset. Instead, I don’t see any tracker there, and the public is left to get verbal updates from Morris Dixon every couple of days on how much money has been raised from that portal.
Adding to the concern is that long before now — in 2020 — the Integrity Commission stopped releasing to the public its database that tracks government contracts, citing limitations in the Integrity Commission Act. Despite bringing the issue to the parliament, lawmakers have dragged their feet to rectify those concerns.
Over the years, the government has also hidden behind various clauses of the Access to Information Act to exempt basic information.
One of its favorites is that the information is commercially sensitive.
Earlier this year, an ATI request to the state’s National Water Commission (NWC) for a copy of the contract for the US$92 million (J$14.75 billion) Rio Cobre Water Treatment Plant project led by French construction firm Vinci and its local partners was largely redacted when sent after several months of the initial request being made, instead of within the initial mandated period of 30 days.
And when 18º North followed up in August asking specifically for some of the public-interest information that had been redacted like: 1. Date of contract signing. 2. Names and signatures of persons that signed the contract and their entity affiliations. 3. The value of the contract. 4. The scope of work to be completed and dates when work would start and end. 5. Initial financing arrangements that were in place for the project—source of financing and interest rates and the price the NWC would pay for this water, the NWC has not responded to the request.
Getting information from the Ministry of Health and Wellness during the Covid-19 pandemic was just as frustrating.
18º North had requested copies of agreements that existed between the Government of Jamaica and international donors of Covid-19 vaccines and was told by the Ministry of Health that a legal review was being sought because section 14 of the ATI Act exempts documents that “contain information communicated in confidence to the Government by or on behalf of a foreign government or by an international organization.” (I can’t find where that legal opinion ever came into my inbox.)
What are the chances that when journalists submit ATI requests for information on Hurricane Melissa aid —be it from the U.S. or other countries like Spain, Venezuela, China or El Salvador — that the same Section 14 of the ATI Act will be invoked?
At the Nov. 6 press briefing, Prime Minister Dr. Andrew Holness said that there would have been a Cabinet meeting that same day to discuss the allocation of expenditures and that, “[Health] Minister Tufton is quick off the bat. He has brought a quite hefty bill.” Morris Dixon, who is also the Minister of Education, said under her breath, “I have mine too.”
So, what has been the allocation to each ministry? The public, at another press conference scheduled for this morning at 10 a.m., should be able to know.
In the same way that the prime minister had invoked sections of the Disaster Risk Management Act before and after the storm, which allows for the speedy deployment of resources to protect life and property, the rules should also be relaxed under the ATI Act so that journalists and members of the public can get information in full and in less than 30 days without these exemption clauses being invoked so we can see how money is flowing in and out.
As a matter of routine, money flowing out via contracts should also be mandatorily required by emergency legislation to report spending of all this disaster relief money to the public by each government entity at least on a quarterly basis. The Integrity Commission should also be mandated under emergency legislation to release a comprehensive report of all these contracts listing contractor, size and date of award, work done and procurement methodology, also on a quarterly basis.
While the Auditor General’s Department announced yesterday that it will be doing real-time auditing of the relief funds, there’s no better audit than the watchful eyes of the public who is able to immediately tell whether work was done and whether value for money was achieved — and of course whether there is fairness in how the contracts are being awarded.
Not Just Money That Needs Monitoring, But Also Aid.
And it’s not just money coming in that needs real-time monitoring.
There also needs to be more transparency on where humanitarian aid is being deployed.
Information should be provided on a daily real-time basis — What was dropped? Where? How many people or families benefited, and how long is the aid expected to last?
This will allow us, as media and members of the public, to understand which communities have yet to be reached, and maybe how we can individually help the ones that are not being reached by government aid.
At the Nov. 6 press briefing, TVJ’s Kelesha Williams asked if there was a schedule of the aid that can be published and was told by Gayle, that there is an internal one but because the situation remains “dynamic” on the ground, even in terms of landing sites, ODPEM would wait until the situation becomes more “benign” before making the daily schedule public. This shouldn’t be the case.
RJR’s Dionne Jackson Miller also asked for a list of marooned communities, since, at its peak, the public was told there were more than 30 communities cut off as a result of flooding, landslides, collapsed bridges or disintegrated roads.
To that, Gayle said the list would be made public “shortly” while assuring that aid had been dropped to more than 20 of the communities and the government was working to reduce the number of marooned communities, which he said last week was 27.
Jackson Miller also asked about an independent oversight committee to monitor the spending of aid. To that, Morris Dixon said the governance framework was still being discussed and we would hear more on that. When?
In a Nov. 2 letter, the presidents of the various private sector bodies in Jamaica had called for an oversight and recovery committee made up of not just representatives of government and the opposition, but also members of the private sector and civil society. At the end of the day, in addition to the millions of U.S. dollars and aid coming in from countries and organizations around the world, US$150 million (J$24 billion) will flow to Jamaica from the World Bank-issued catastrophe bond, and US$91.9 million (US$14.8 billion) from CCRIF, which for us, is significant.
As social enterprise specialist, Yaneek Page, posted on X on Nov. 7, “History has taught us that once aid comes, the whispers begin,” and Jamaica can’t afford to follow the path of Haiti or Puerto Rico where the aid came but the systems failed and communities were overlooked.
She posted, “We must show our people, donors, and the world, a gold standard in accountability and reporting. Transparent. Non-partisan. Auditable. Immediate.”
I second her sentiments. I would also add more specificity being made available quickly to the public to guide the decision-making around humanitarian relief.
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I’m not sure how we deliver rice, flour and other foods needing to be cooked to people who are homeless. I can’t understand the reluctance of the government to house these people. Surely the government can ask the Chineses to work with the JDF to construct even 1 bedroom temporary houses for people. It’s not impossible to do. They can’t set up tiny houses on their properties. Don’t food for the poor provide moveable homes too. I just don’t know what to say about all this.