Contractor General Greg Christie has expressed satisfaction with recent efforts by the management of Air Jamaica to clean up its contract-awards process.

However, that has not stopped Christie from issuing several recommendations to the management of the airline to improve its contract-award process after he discovered a slew of breaches of the Government's procurement guidelines by the airline, starting in May 2005.

Following a more than two-year probe, Christie concluded that management failed to comply with the Government's contract-award guidelines in several areas.

Not registered

These included the award of contracts to entities that were not registered with the National Contracts Commission and the awarding of contracts valued more than $4 million without the necessary Cabinet approval.

Christie also found that in several instances, companies provided services to Air Jamaica without any formal agreement.

But Christie said Air Jamaica had since made efforts to regularise its procurement activities and there had been increased tendering and approval of contracts.

According to the contractor general, since the start of this year, Air Jamaica has complied with the rules by sending nine contracts to the National Contracts Commission for approval. Christie recommended that the airline continue to introduce measures to ensure that it complies with all the guidelines.

Among the recommendations is for Air Jamaica to establish properly constituted and functional procurement committees at its various locations to ensure that all contracts are awarded in keeping with Government guidelines.