UNDER THE NEW GOVERNMENT'S no-nonsense policy on state expenditure for large projects, somebody may be hauled over the coals for what happened to the unfinished Newton Business Park.

Prime Minister David Thompson indicated this yesterday during
a news conference at the Almond Bay Conference Centre
in Hastings, Christ Church.

Thompson said he was "alarmed" at the Auditor-General's revelations about the project, which include the fact that the previous Government disbursed the full $18.5 million loan to the controversial project, started in 2003, before it was completed.

Auditor-General Leigh Trotman had said it was "inexplicable"
that all funds could have been disbursed while the project remained unfinished.

"I have read the Auditor-General's report and I am probably as alarmed as most Barbadians,
but I am not the kind of person who believes in instant policy or reacting when in Government to
scenarios presented before
you," Thompson told reporters.

"I believe we need a little
more information but we gave a commitment, and I stand by that commitment, prior to the [January 15] election that we will bring the full weight of the law to bear
on anybody who has been found making decisions . . . unaccountably and which have led to the expenditure of public monies
either without approval or
on questionable bases."

He noted that the last Government had passed new financial rules which made ministers personally liable
for certain kinds of expenditures taking place.

". . . If this matter falls within that category where somebody has to be, if, I say, personally liable for it, then, as I said, the full weight of the financial rules will be brought to bear on the issue."

A lapsed ten per cent performance bond was one of the key findings of a probe by the
Audit Office of the unfinished Newton Business Park.

The office pointed out that this led to the inability of the Barbados Industrial Development Corporation (BIDC) to fund completion
of the project.

Auditor-General Trotman,
in a special report, noted that
in this case, the surety – equal
to ten per cent of the contract
($1.8 million) – would have given the BIDC access to funds in
any default by the contractor.

"For reasons that are still unclear," he wrote in the 2007 annual report laid in the
House of Assembly, "the bond
was allowed to lapse.

"The importance of this event cannot be understated, since, without the performance bond issued by a creditworthy entity,
the BIDC and lenders had no third party guarantees to support project performance up to completion." (TY)