Jamaica Accountability Meter Portal launches enhanced online public bodies trackers

The Jamaica Accountability Meter Portal (JAMP), a public sector accountability agency funded by the European Union and headquartered in Kingston, is launching a number of online tracking tools which will monitor and hold public-sector bodies to account.

This will go a long way in ensuring that public sector leaders do what they have committed to and keep them honest. The effectiveness of these tools depends in large part on citizen engagement.

The launch took place on Friday at the Liguanea Club in Kingston with former Prime Minister Bruce Golding’s as the guest speaker.

There will be eight tracking tools, which are online platforms. The Account-a-Meter tracks breaches of government policies, regulations and legislation as identified primarily by the Auditor General and provides a status update on steps taken or not taken to remedy the concerns raised. The National Budget Tool simplifies Jamaica’s national budget and tells you how public funds will be spent and where government revenue will come from. The Procurement Tracker draws on a Government database of over 179,000 contracts awarded over 14 years. This monitors procurement patterns and tells you who won contracts. The MP Tracker identifies key accountability indicators that measure the compliance of Members of Parliament with GOJ laws and policies. This portal provides Jamaicans with the means of contacting all Members of Parliament.

The Access to Information Tool allows citizens to request documentation from ministries, departments and agencies based on raised concerns.  The Legislative Tracker unpacks the legislative process by tracking accountability-related bills from introduction to passage. The Public Bodies Governance Tracker will be populated with the findings of each public body’s compliance with selected GOJ corporate governance indicators. The Sectoral Commitment Tracker, which sees to it that ministries do what they say they will do. From the sectoral debate presentations, JAMP identifies the significant legislative, policy and programmatic commitments made across all ministries. Relying on the provisions of the Access to Information Act, JAMP obtains confirmation from each Ministry on the status of these commitments-whether fulfilled, not fulfilled or ongoing. 

These digital tools should set new standards of compliance and ensure public sector bodies can be held accountable.

Speaking at the launch on Friday, Chairperson of the PSOJ’s Corporate Governance Committee, Camille Facey said. “ We need our public bodies to perform well because they affect all of our lives. We said we needed to take the same approach we took in the private sector with public bodies. We want every entity in Jamaica to hit 100 per cent ( compliance and accountability); that is our aim, to encourage you to improve. In order to get more traction with the public sector, we launched the Public Bodies Awards. We said come, tell us how well your public bodies are doing and apply. There are 156 public bodies; we probably got only 17 of them applying. The ones that applied are the ones that are doing well. We want to ensure public bodies are following laws and regulations. Because if they are doing so, their governance will be better, and if their governance is better, their operations will be better, and if their operations are better, we will be better. We said we will score you whether or not you apply. So the Index was in our thoughts and desires, but we didn’t know how to do it. So we went to wonderful Jeanette (Calder) and wonderful JAMP.

“She was also working on her own idea as to how to track these things. So we put together a team from the PSOJ, academia, public sector, and we worked with Jeanette. We said nobody elected us, nobody voted for us, but there are all these laws. So we are going to take all these laws and see whether the entities are complying with them, and that is what the Public Bodies Tracker is. Points are assigned and based on those, scoring grades are assigned just like the private sector.”

“Thirty-eight public entities were presented based on the expenditure of their budget. All the entities had expenditure budgets in excess of J$2 billion.  The composite budget for the 38 public sector bodies is $810.4 billion. This represents 94 per cent of the total expenditure budget of  all public sector bodies. From the PSOJ perspective, we are delighted that this tracker is here because everybody in Jamaica will be able to go on and see how this particular public body is complying. We are also launching the Sectoral Tracker, which is all Jeanette. This tracker will provide a credible basis by which the public can measure ministerial performance.

“In Jamaica we like say ‘nothin nah gwan”, we like to think everything is at zero, but this tracker is going to show you that there are ministries, that there are public officials who are complying. We can’t always tear down; we also have to celebrate those who are doing well because the aim is for everybody to get 100 per cent because we, the citizens, benefit.

This is good work by JAMP, and now, with the two trackers launched on Friday, JAMP is tracking compliance by public bodies with the laws and regulations and with the Sectoral Tracker, it will track whether commitments made by central government to the public are being kept.

Founder and Executive Director of JAMP, Jeanette Calder, thanked JAMP’s donors, noting they have contributed significant funds and said it was benefiting from $75 million from the EU. 

“ This is a testament to their investment, and they are expecting to see the returns. I couldn’t have done this without the contributed resources. One person can make a difference, but you are not going to go far without others coming in. JAMP began with the conviction that we have a responsibility, having invested our money in those oversight bodies, to take the baton and carry it further. I have been at it now for thirteen years.  These trackers began with the Account-a-Meter, which takes the Auditor General’s recommendations and then tracks them through the power of the Access to Information Act.

“There are 156 public bodies right now, and I really want to commend the Government because when JAMP started out, it was 222, and the Government had a policy to rationalise them to save money, and it continues to do so. We have set a target to capture public sector bodies who are complying, and right now 29 are being currently assessed, and we will continue to build out. We start, and then we get going.  This would not be possible without a Government that is cooperating with citizens. It really is a public, private and citizen partnership. The Ministry of Finance has given JAMP access to a level of detail on its budget that has never been given to citizens before. That’s a level of transparency that is amazing.” 

What is remarkable is that JAMP consists of just three professionals but has had considerable impact, raising the level of accountability expected from public sector bodies and officials.