A sitting Jamaican Member of Parliament is pushing back hard against widespread demands for his resignation, pushing back hard against claims that he leveraged his company’s connection to a public hospital’s tax-exempt status to defraud the state out of millions in unpaid customs duties. Dennis Gordon, who represents the St Andrew East Central constituency and owns private medical firm JACDEN Limited, has broken his silence on the controversy first outlined in a January Auditor General’s Department (AGD) report, giving his first full public interview to the Jamaica Observer where he framed the calls for his ouster as a politically driven smear campaign.
In the AGD report tabled earlier this year in Jamaica’s Parliament, auditors revealed that the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) had improperly used its legally granted tax-exempt import status to bring goods into the country on behalf of four private companies. The scheme resulted in an estimated $23.1 million in total lost state revenue, with more than $20 million in unpaid import duties that violate the nation’s Customs Act. False customs declarations, the AGD noted, carry legal penalties including fines and potential criminal prosecution. After the report’s release, UHWI publicly named the four private entities as Supreme Laundry Services, Willman Sales, Scientific Medical Services, and JACDEN Limited, putting Gordon directly in the spotlight.
Gordon confirmed that UHWI did facilitate the import clearance of a shipment of dialysis machines for his company, but he adamantly denies any intentional effort to evade customs obligations. He explained that when the shipment arrived on the island, JACDEN discovered it needed an import permit from the Ministry of Health that could not be processed in time to meet a tight deadline: the biomedical technicians who traveled with the equipment only had 10-day visas to complete installation. Gordon, who says he does not handle JACDEN’s day-to-day operations, noted that his company’s management reached out to UHWI for assistance, a long-standing convention that has been used by multiple entities partnering with the hospital for more than two decades.
Once the irregularity was identified, Gordon says he immediately took voluntary action to correct the mistake. “They reached out to me and said I should pay approximately $10.1 million, which I paid. So, what is the crime?” he asked. The MP also pointed out that he has already provided UHWI with official proof of full payment to customs authorities, closing the gap in what critics claimed was lost taxpayer money. Gordon argues that the entire controversy is a targeted character assassination, what he calls “modern-day lynching” by political opponents with an ulterior agenda. He emphasized that the AGD has not issued any finding of corruption or criminal wrongdoing against him or his company, and that those calling for his resignation lack any moral authority to do so.
“If the auditor general had fined me, had indicted me for anything, I would have been the first to resign, because I did not go to politics for a pay cheque, I entered politics for service,” Gordon stated. He added that the disproportionate focus on his company, while the other three firms named in the report have drawn little public scrutiny, further proves the campaign is politically motivated: “My only crime is my success and that I am a PNP [People’s National Party] Member of Parliament.”
Gordon also pushed back against the narrative that he personally profited from the arrangement, pointing to a long record of donations and accessible care for low-income Jamaicans. He noted that JACDEN has previously donated critical, hard-to-access medical equipment to UHWI, including patient monitors, foetal monitors, and diabetic ulcer monitors, donations that have gone unreported by critics pushing the negative narrative. He added that the dialysis machines at the center of the controversy are used to offer treatment at just $10,000 per session, around half the market rate charged by other private providers, and the clinic has never turned away a patient for inability to pay.
The clinic, he explained, was founded on his commitment to bring affordable medical care to the most vulnerable Jamaicans, a mission he developed after traveling to Cuba to study accessible healthcare models. JACDEN also regularly treats patients referred from the public health system, which currently faces a critical shortage of dialysis machines. Gordon further noted that his company has previously imported two fully paid-for ambulances to serve homebound patients who cannot travel to care facilities, but the vehicles have sat idle in his office parking lot for three months waiting for a required government inspection that has not been scheduled, a barrier to public service that has drawn no media attention.
Beyond the professional and political damage, Gordon says the most painful part of the controversy is the impact it has had on his 96-year-old mother, who has been caught up in the negative public attention. “Listen, you can do Dennis Gordon anything, but just don’t kill my mother. She is 96, allow her to live her life comfortably rather than putting her in this stressful position and situation; that is what bothers me most,” he said.
As of this report, the *Sunday Observer* has not been able to reach the principals of the other three private companies named in the AGD report for comment, leaving their responses to the allegations unpublicized.