Tag: transparency

Letter to the Editor – Public Procurement Progress?

Fri, 12 Sept 2025

The Editor,

The second Procurement Compliance Plus (PC+) Lab on 10 September 2025 was focused on Procurement Governance, so it was a strong addition to this excellent training series for this important new legal arena. Although Procurement and Purchasing are long-established essential processes for any business, this is a novel field due to the significant changes arising from the Public Procurement & Disposal of Public Property Act (PPDPPA) 2015. The PPDPPA established effective new rules to oversee transactions in Public Money, with heavily punitive provisions, its most important feature being that oversight and penalties are now applicable to both named Public Sector Officials and Private Sector Suppliers and Contractors.

The interactive sessions were hosted by a cadre of outstanding professionals, led by the estimable Dr Margaret Rose, a long-time campaigner and educator in this field. I was a panellist, but it was also an opportunity for me to learn from and engage with a range of practitioners in this multi-faceted professional field.

Continue reading “Letter to the Editor – Public Procurement Progress?” →

Letter to the Editor – Freedom of Information?

Fri, 5 Sept 2025

The Editor,

The Freedom of Information Act 1999 (FoIA) is part of what I call the “RLM Suite” of Legacy Policy – reforms championed during the tenure of then-AG Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj. That suite included the FoIA, the Judicial Review law, the activation of the Integrity Commission, the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Proceeds of Crime Act. Together they represented a deliberate attempt to empower citizens and hold public institutions accountable.

I chose the phrase ‘Legacy Policy’ to denote a particular type of law which it is all but impossible to reverse, due to its manifest good sense and popularity. So, although our Courts have widely recognised the transformative concepts at the heart of the FoIA, with leading rulings now cited internationally, with approval, as examples of progressive jurisprudence, there is still a deep dis-ease with the very Freedom of Information, at the political level.

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JAMP Citizen Perspectives: Fighting Corruption via Parliament webinar: 1 April 2025

JAMP Citizen Perspectives: Fighting Corruption via Parliament webinar: 1 April 2025

JAMP (Jamaica Accountability Meter Portal) presented the findings of its citizen survey on parliamentary accountability in the fight against corruption. Afra Raymond was invited to be a guest speaker at this webinar hosted by Jeanette Calder, Executive Director, JAMP, to give a Trinidad and Tobago perspective on accountability and transparency. Video courtesy JAMP

  • Programme Length: 00:32:09
  • Programme Date: 1 April 2025

No tax holiday for Sandals – Trinidad and Tobago Guardian

The T&T Guardian newspaper interviewed Afra Raymond on the issue of the renewed engagement of the Sandals hotel group to develop a resort in Tobago. The following article, written by Andrea Perez-Sobers and published on Friday, April 4, 2025, is presented below. Click here to read the complete article on the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian website.

If the State is to revisit and fund the Sandals mega-project in Tobago, the hotel must pay proper rates of tax and rates of pay to its staff.

There ought to be no tax holidays or concessions if the entire complex is to be funded by public money and on publicly owned land.

That’s according to former head of the Joint Consultative Council (JCC) Afra Raymond, responding to former prime minister Dr Keith Rowley’s statements on March 15 that he has personally reached out to the Sandals’ owner with a plea to take another look at the island.

“I didn’t give up after all that (first failed attempt). Recently, I spoke to the leadership at Sandals, and I asked them to come look at this again, and if I was the problem, I wouldn’t be there moving forward,” Rowley said, at the commissioning of Tobago’s new terminal of the ANR Robinson International Airport..

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Keynote address to Regional Compliance Consultants Breakfast Seminar

Afra Raymond’s keynote speech at the 11th Anniversary Breakfast Seminar for Regional Compliance Consultants (RCC) held at Courtyard Marriott in Port of Spain on Wednesday, 22 May 2024. He spoke on the theme “The Importance and Ethics of the Compliance Profession”. The master of ceremonies was Kingsley Lewis of RCC.

  • Programme Date: 22 May 2024
  • Programme Length: 00:20:54
Courtesy RCC

A worthy NGO?

“We are not Serious…
Very few Conscious…
So, I cannot agree with mih own Chorus!”

from the first verse of ‘Dis Place nice’ by Brother Valentino

“Your silence will not protect you.”

Caribbean Philosopher Audre Lorde, on the false beliefs and toxic consequences earned from calculated or cowardly silences

“Last call to all corporates. Support this worthy NGO if you can,” was the rallying note from an erstwhile Colleague who had served on the Board of the T&T Transparency Institute (TTTI). This was an appeal to boost ticket sales for the TTTI’s fundraising dinner carded for 22 May 2024, but it ultimately provoked me into making these pointed observations, so here goes.

For a some years now, it has become increasingly clear that TTTI had drifted from its purpose with less and less work, of lower and lower quality, emerging from that NGO of which I am an Ordinary Member. One can scarcely believe that this was once a vibrant, outspoken and well-informed NGO with dedicated leaders such as Victor Hart, Richard Joseph, Deryck Murray and Annette des Iles, not that we can ever forget the recently departed Reginald Dumas and Boyd Reid.

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Letter to the Editor – Come Again, Minister West

The Editor,

The Minister of Public Administration [MPA] responded to my previous letter in the Sunday Edition of 29 October 2023, the very next day.

TTT Live Online

Minister West disputed my citations of the monthly rent of $600,000 and the 23,000sf floor area of those offices, as well as my conclusion that the resulting rent of $26psf signified ‘flagrant corruption’.  The Minister went on to say that the correct monthly rent was $500,000 and that the floor area was in fact 43,295sf, which equates to a rent of $11.55psf.  

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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

Manufactured Consent in new Public Procurement law?

“Ambiguity and silence is the enemy of #ethics and #integrity.”

Richard Bistrong @Richardbistrong Twitter feed. Dec 5, 2019

“‘Manufactured consent’ is supported by…effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion.”

Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media 1988, (New York: Pantheon Books)

The Public Procurement & Disposal of Public Property Act (the Act) was fully proclaimed on Wednesday 26 April 2023, which makes that one of our Republic’s truly historic days by any measure.

I welcomed the decision to proclaim the Act, since even with the damaging suite of 2020 exemptions, this is a tremendous step in the right direction of Accountability, Transparency and Good Governance so that we can achieve improved Value for Money in our Public Affairs. The Private Sector Civil Society Group wrote and lobbied for this important law, so this is the result of long-term, collective effort. We owe serious appreciation to those who persisted when this was a faraway vision.

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VIDEO: “Caribbean Bridges” Ep. 4 – TIEF from TIEF MEK GOD LAUGH!

“It is no laughing matter when it comes to corruption in high and low places. Little and big bribes, kickbacks and dishonesty…Can it be cleaned up?” Caribbean journalist from Barbados, Julian Rogers interviewed Afra Raymond along with Dr. Troy Thomas former Head of TI Guyana, who successfully challenged the EXXON-Mobil contract in October 2020 in Guyana’s High Court and Ms. Jeanette Calder the Executive Director of Jamaica Accountability Meter Portal on transparency and corruption on his show “Caribbean Bridges”. Video courtesy Caribbean Bridges.