Category: Politics and Public Affairs

Letter to the Editor – $55m fiasco: bring in the Fraud Squad

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) offices on Park Street, Port of Spain. The refurbished building was handed over to the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs in July 2020 by Nidco, and has remained unoccupied since. —Photo: ROBERT TAYLOR. Courtesy Trinidad Express

The Editor,

The government has now decided to end the lease of RBC’s former headquarters at Park St, claiming that a reported $55M of Public Money had been spent on that property, which the DPP never occupied as intended.

Your edition of Sunday, 22 October 2023, covered those events with Anna Ramdass’ two-page chronology entitled “A monument of waste“, your editorial “Seems we like it so!” and Noble Phillips’ provocative column “Are we all becoming Mahal?“.

Sad to say, but all of this plays to a muddled and distressing narrative of careless, poorly-managed spending of scarce Public Money, with a majority of the blame intended to settle on the DPP.  The chronicle being one of a government anxious to provide proper offices for a DPP who is careless and capricious, with the government eventually making the tough choice to vacate the office it had so scrupulously procured for the DPP.

Your editorial opened with –

“…The best one might say about the $55 million wasted rent fiasco is that it appears to be a case of gross incompetence and perhaps “obstrufication” (new word? Possibly, obscurification, or simply, obfuscation.) rather than flagrant corruption…”

“Seems we like it so!” (21 October 2023). Trinidad Express

Having considered the available facts as disclosed by the PM at a public meeting on 9 March 2023 (as reported in the Trinidad Express pages on 11 March 2023) I could not agree less with your position on this matter.  Indeed it is clear to me that flagrant corruption, or something very closely resembling that, was in effect in this matter.

These are the facts stated by Dr. Rowley – 

  • Rent – These offices comprise 23,000sf leased in July 2020 at a monthly rent of $600,000, which equates to the literally incredible rate of $26psf!  Very few offices in POS have ever rented for as much as even $20psf, even in the prime zones, which the corner of Park and Henry Streets is definitely not.  This raises sobering questions of professional responsibility, to which I will return;
  • Improvements – Having paid what by any measure is record-high rent, the government then spent a reported $24M in improvements, which equates to $1,044 psf.
  • Terms – Republic Bank Ltd also rents space in the same ex-RBC building, but I doubt that RBL’s negotiators agreed any such record rental.  What were the lease terms agreed by RBL for that space? What are the other rents paid at that ex-RBC building by other, private-sector, tenants?

I am reliably informed that this lease was agreed by the Ministry of Public Administration, on behalf of the DPP, so the question arises as to what advice informed that record rental level for an office which required a further $24M in reported improvements.  Did the MPA receive professional advice before agreeing to that record rent?  If not, why not?  If professional advice was received, who was the adviser and what was the level of rent advised? 

According to the leading learning on this issue, Public Money must be managed and accounted for to a higher standard than that applicable to Private Money, since it is raised involuntarily.  That means the state must not pay rents higher than those which the private sector would consider reasonable.

Grand corruption is only possible with the complicity of qualified and respectable professionals, so this is what is at stake in this highly-questionable matter.

This is certainly a matter which should be engaging the urgent attention of our Fraud Squad, with the advice of the DPP.  Eternal vigilance is imperative to safeguard the public interest at this time of scarce Public Money.

Afra Raymond
afraraymond.net

Keynote address at launch of Call To Action for Social Change Foundation

Afra Raymond was asked to deliver the keynote address at the launch of the Call To Action for Social Change Foundation held at the CLL Auditorium at The UWI campus, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. His speech was entitled, “The role of civil society and its importance in a well-functioning society.” Video courtesy Call To Action

  • Programme Date: 10 September 2023
  • Programme Length: 00:14:44
Video courtesy Call To Action for Social Change Foundation

Press Release on Afra Raymond vs PS in the Ministry of the Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs

For immediate release

On 1st June 2023, The Honourable Justice Ramcharan ordered that I be granted access to the previously undisclosed correspondence between the Attorney General and the Chief Justice, together with payment of my costs. This ruling affirms the principles of accountability, transparency and open governance and upholds the public’s right to information vital to the functioning of our society.  The PS in the AGLA was ordered to provide the 12th April 2022 letter from the AG to the CJ requesting a checklist prior to proclamation of the Public Procurement & Disposal of Public Property Act (the Act) and the CJ’s 25th May 2022 letter in reply.  That Order was subject to a 42-day stay, to allow the AGLA the opportunity to file an appeal.  That 42-day stay ended on Friday 14th July 2023 without any appeal from the AGLA, so my attorneys wrote to the State yesterday and the requested documents were provided promptly.

 I must thank my attorney, Kingsley Walesby, for his high-quality advice and representations, as well as to acknowledge the professional approach of the State’s attorneys at the close of this matter.

The CJ’s 25th May 2022 letter accompanied the Judiciary’s 29-page commentary which was largely devoted to criticising the Act, its scope, likely effect and arrangements.   When the AG hosted his first Media Conference on 22nd June 2022, he labelled the Judiciary’s concerns as ‘traffic-stopping’, such was the seriousness of those comments and he announced that as his justification for delaying proclamation of the Act.

Using the Freedom of Information Act, I requested those comments from the AGLA and then the Judiciary.  On 5th October 2022 the Judiciary published its 29-page commentary, but the ‘letters of transmittal’ between the AG and the CJ remained undisclosed, so I filed this lawsuit on 22nd October 2022 against the AGLA.

There is a synchronicity in the disclosure of this important exchange at this juncture with the 29th May 2023 Judicial Exemptions and the reconvening of Parliament to rectify the 2020 Amendments with respect to Exemptions.  I will be advancing those arguments very soon.

Copies of the documents obtained via the lawsuit are attached.

Afra Raymond
afraraymond.net

ATTACHMENTS

Ruling of Honourable Mr. Justice Kevin Ramcharan

Letter to Chief Solicitor’s Department requesting mail exchange

Mail exchange between the Attorney General and the Chief Justice

Letter to the Editor – Emergency Excuses Explained

The Editor,

#TheTruthEatsLies

The PM’s welcome decision to reconvene Parliament to rectify the Exemptions provisions of the Public Procurement & Disposal of Public Property Act (the Act) needs to be carefully scrutinized to defend the Public Interest.

There are two interlocking grounds for concern – 

  1. ‘Emergency Procurement’
    Both the PM and the Finance Minister have repeatedly stated that the Act takes a one -size-fits-all approach to Public Procurement, which effectively does not cater for Emergency Procurement.  Those assertions are being used to advance the case for further diluting the Act, but those assertions are absolutely untrue.

    The ‘Emergency Procurement’ provisions are at Procurement Methods & Procedures Regulation 14(2)(c): “Sole source selection may be used…where, due to reasons of extreme urgency brought about by unforeseen events…the subject matter of the procurement cannot be obtained in a timely manner…”

    There are also adequate provisions for other types of emergency and urgent situations, etc, but I have just included the main citation to demonstrate that it is not a one-size-fits-all set of arrangements, as its detractors have been saying.
  2. Affirmative Resolution
    The Parliament agreed on 8 December 2020 that the Ministerial Exemptions would be approved by Affirmative Resolution, yet the draft Amendments tabled for debate on Wednesday, 19 July 2023 provide for approval of those via Negative Resolution.  That is contrary to what was agreed when the 2020 amendments were debated in Parliament and this is being advanced on the false basis of the lack of ‘Emergency Procurement’ provisions.

We need the utmost vigilance to defend our collective interests as these convulsions will intensify.

Sunlight is the best Disinfectant.

Afra Raymond,
former JCC President

VIDEO: CNC3 interview on the Ministerial exemptions in TT Procurement legislation

This is an interview with news anchors Ria Rambally and Ryan Bachoo on the controversial Ministerial Exemptions to the Public Procurement & Disposal of Public Property Act, which was broadcast on 7:00 pm news on CNC3 Television on Friday, 14 July 2023. Video courtesy CNC3.

  • Programme Date: 14 July 2023
  • Programme Length: 00:07:18
Video courtesy CNC3 TV

Letter to the Editor – Egregious Exemptions Explained

The Editor,

The 2020 suite of amendments to the Public Procurement & Disposal of Public Property Act (the Act) removed oversight from some significant types of public spending and created the option for the Finance Minister to create new exemptions.  That Ministerial discretion to create new exemptions is now the subject of considerable controversy and threatened lawsuits.  

These issues have emerged from two three-month Ministerial exemptions – the Judiciary on 29th May and the 50th CARICOM Anniversary/Diplomatic matters on 29th June.  The first of those exemptions came as no surprise, given the Judiciary’s bizarre and still unexplained objections to the Act.  The second set came to the attention of the Opposition and triggered the PM to promise that the Act will be accordingly amended/rectified at a special Parliamentary sitting next week.

It is really important to pause at these moments to take our bearings and record exactly what has taken place.

It is clear from the Hansard that Parliament intended and agreed that these Ministerial Exemptions would be subject to  ‘affirmative resolution’, meaning that the proposed Amendment had to be tabled/listed in Parliament for Public notice, Debated and then Voted upon by both Houses.  The purpose of that arrangement being that although the Govt will naturally hold the majority of votes in the Parliament, the Public and the Opposition can have proper Notice of any intended Exemptions and take the necessary steps to deal with it politically. 

For whatever reason, that intention is not in the text of the 2020 Amendments, so the literal reading is that the Minister can create those exemptions via an Order without any reference to Parliament.  Of course, the proper interpretation of that law would require a Court to examine Parliament’s debates to decide, so one can only wonder on what advice was the Finance Minister proceeding.

The Finance Minister has been in office since 2015 and his agreement to the affirmative resolution provision (Hansard of 8 December 2020 – pg 202), as well as his recognition that this error had arisen and needed to be rectified (Hansard of 11 December 2020 – pg 43) are both on the record.  The compelling and inescapable issue being that the Finance Minister knew of the typo in the text and took full advantage of it in a manner which is unbecoming and in my view, quite contrary to his Oath of Office.

Finally, we should all remain alert as these are just a few of the bizarre convulsions from players who are accustomed to the lights being off, or at least suitably dimmed.  Sunlight is the best Disinfectant.

Afra Raymond
former JCC President

ADDENDUM

The Trinidad and Tobago Guardian published a overview written by Kejan Haynes of the situation based on the letter to the editor and concerns from others.

AUDIO: CNC3 interview on procurement

Afra Raymond did a short interview with Dareece Polo of CNC3 Television and Guardian media on the legality of the new exemptions to the Public Procurement & Disposal of Public Property Act. This is an extension to a series of questions arising from the “emergency exemptions” arising from the CARICOM 50th anniversary celebrations in Trinidad and Tobago.

  • Programme Date: 11 July 2023
  • Programme length: 00:08:48
Dareece Polo and Afra Raymond

Open letter to President Kangaloo on the overdue appointment of the Chairman of the OPR

The Editor,

The Office of Procurement Regulation (OPR) Chairman’s position has been vacant since 11th January 2023, with no official indication as to when that vacancy is to be filled. The OPR is an important institution which needs capable and experienced leadership, so we need to have that appointment made without any further delay.

I am reliably informed that this important appointment is being actively considered, but we need to ensure that a sound decision is made in the public interest. The inaugural Regulator, Moonilal Lalchan, was appointed in 2018 after the job was advertised by President Carmona in 2017, so the precedent has been set to publicly invite applications for this position. (See advertisement below)

Mr Lalchan performed well, without any complaints or concerns being expressed, so his reappointment ought to be a priority if we are to operationalise this important new Office to defend the Public Interest. In the alternative, the President should activate a transparent process to appoint a suitable candidate without further delay.  The Regulator’s post has been vacant since January 2023 and President Kangaloo took office three months ago, so this vacancy now needs to be advertised.

Thank you.

Afra Raymond
former JCC President
afraraymond.net