(Jamaica Observer) Four umbrella church groups have welcomed Monday’s resignation of two members of the National Housing Trust (NHT) board over the Outameni affair, while charging that purchasing the Trelawny-based attraction “is immoral” and shows “poor stewardship of the resources of our people”.
“If we are to regain the trust of the Jamaican people and have a Jamaica to bequeath to the generations to come, we must hold those in public office who are entrusted with the nation’s business to the highest levels of probity, and moral and ethical conduct,” said a release by the group.
“As such we welcome the decision of some of the members of the NHT board to resign,” said the joint release from the Jamaica Council of Churches, the Jamaica Evangelical Alliance, the Jamaica Association of Full Gospel Churches and the Independent Churches of Jamaica.
Trade unionists Kavan Gayle and Helene Davis-Whyte both handed in their resignations, casualties of the raging controversy over the J$180-million purchase of the Outameni Experience.
The resignation Monday of the two trade unionists came seven months after those of the Rev Oliver Daley, banker Minna Israel, economist Dr Davidson Daway and attorney-at-law Deborah Martin.
They had resigned in April following the sudden firing of Managing Director Cecile Watson. There are now nine members left on the board of the State-run agency.
In Parliament last week Tuesday, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller said she wasn’t aware of the purchase until she saw it in the media toward the end of October, and indicated that the Auditor General would commence a probe into the deal.
The church groups said, however, that the response of the prime minister “further highlighted the gravity of the matter”.
They said: “It has, among other things, revealed the poor stewardship of the resources of our people, both in the exorbitant price paid for such investment and the lack of a feasibility study that would minimise the risk to the country.
“We consider it immoral to engage such action at a time when many contributors to the NHT fund are unable to access benefits and when as a country we have had to be making such grave sacrifices in an effort to see the recovery of our economy. We are also not convinced that the full truth of the matter has been shared with the Jamaican people,” the release added.
The groups, at the same time, have called for a full and thorough investigation by the auditor general and the contractor general into this matter and that the findings be made public. In addition, they called for an immediate review of the NHT Act to ensure that the necessary safeguards are built in to protect the fund from abuse and mismanagement.
