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The police have been called in to probe a death threat issued to a Senior Director within the Office of the Contractor General (OCG).
Contractor General, Greg Christie says Assistant Commissioner of Police in Charge of Serious Crimes, Les Green is now investigating the origins of an anonymous telephone call to the Director, warning that he would be killed.
Both the Contractor General and ACP Green have declined to comment publicly on the death threat, but it is understood that high level security measures have been implemented following a meeting Wednesday with officers from the Protective Services Division of the Jamaica Constabulary Force.
The OCG Director, who received the death threat, has been leading an intensive audit into a group of five irregular contractor re-registration applications.
The applications have linked <span style="font-weight: bold">five Government contractors in what is suspected to be a criminal conspiracy involving </span>the award of Government contracts by the National Housing Trust (NHT).
<span style="font-weight: bold">The five contractors have, during the past four years, been awarded contracts from the NHT amounting to at least $87 million</span>.
At the end of last year, the OCG issued a release pinpointing another threat to staff at the government entity.
That threat is related to the discovery of fraudulent applications submitted to the National Contracts Commission (NCC) between September and October 2009 by the Managing Director of one of the contracting firms.
That investigation has intensified over the past two weeks, with the OCG conducting several taped interviews with representatives of all five contractors as well as four employees of the NHT.
The threats have reportedly shaken up staff at the government watchdog agency whose mandate is to stamp out corruption in how contracts are awarded.
In the meantime, <span style="font-weight: bold">the OCG has fired one of its own Directors as the fallout over the awarding of government contracts to fake contractors continues.</span>
Employees of the National Housing Trust, an Information Technology specialist and a high school teacher have also been fingered as being involved in the tangled web of alleged deceit.
The OCG says based on evidence it has uncovered, four of the contractors it is investigating for fraudulent registration applications are fakes.
The web of alleged corruption, according to an OCG release, extends to a former director who was fired on Monday.
The Director, who had 18 years of employment with the agency under his belt, allegedly confessed to internal investigators that he had falsified the Contractor Verification Forms for the four fake contractors.
<span style="font-weight: bold">The OCG says one of the four fake contractors is a full-time teacher at a prominent St. Andrew High School, while another is an Information Technology Specialist</span>.
The probe suggests that the four fake contractors are utilized by the fifth to funnel contract awards from the NHT.
The OCG points to joint bank accounts in the name of the fifth contractor that are being maintained by at least two of the sham contractors allegedly to facilitate Government contract payments.
The Contractor General's office says it has also established that the Managing Director of the fifth contractor is a church brother of one of the sham contractors and a neighbour of another.
The office says the scam was set up at the prominent Kingston church where they worship.
Additionally, someone identified as a Project Manager of the NHT, has been formally listed as a full time employee of the fifth contractor for the past four years.
Two other full-time employees of the NHT are also listed as full time employees of two of the sham contractors.