The zero-tolerance policy of the Office of the Contractor General (OCG), which was first introduced in October 2006 to combat public bodies that were refusing to comply with the lawful requisitions of the office, has again succeeded in producing a 100 per cent compliance rate for the third consecutive quarter.

All 193 public bodies, whose contract award activities are currently being monitored by the OCG, were declared fully compliant in filing their 2009 third quarter contract award (QCA) reports to the OCG by the November 3 deadline.

QCA reports are required to be filed with the OCG within one month after the end of each quarter. Where the month ends on a weekend or a public holiday, QCA reports must be filed by the next business day. An additional one-day grace period is also provided by the OCG.

Automatic referral

The zero-tolerance policy dictates that a failure on the part of any public body to comply with the OCG's QCA requisition results in the automatic referral of the head of the delinquent public body to the director of public prosecutions.

It is instructive to record that no exceptions to the application of this policy have ever been allowed by the contractor general in the three years that the policy has been in force.

The OCG's QCA report forms are designed to disclose whether, and to what extent, a procuring public body has breached the Government's Procurement Procedures.

For more information on what the OCG does, and any public body which has contracts with the Government that you wish to enquire about, visit the OCG's website at www.ocg.gov.jm.