Tag: trinidad and tobago

Property Matters – Eden Gardens case

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In November 2016, the State filed its lawsuit against certain former Public Officials and their presumed collaborators for alleged fraud in the HDC’s 2012 purchase of 50.5 acres at Eden Gardens in Freeport. The defendants named in that lawsuit were – Jearlean John (former HDC Managing Director), Henckle Lall (former HDC chairman), Greg Davis (former deputy HDC chairman), Peter Forde, Project Specialist Ltd, former commissioner of valuations Ronald Heeralal, Point Lisas Park Ltd, Anthony Sampath, Patrick Soon Ting and lastly, Everil Ross, who was formerly attached to the Valuation Division.

On 17th April 2018, the High Court dismissed the State’s lawsuit when it refused to grant the State further extensions of time to file its full case. That has been claimed by the defendants as a form of exoneration. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing.
Continue reading “Property Matters – Eden Gardens case” →

CL Financial bailout – the EFPA Details, part one

CL Financial bailout – the EFPA Details, part one

Declaration

I was a Director of the Trinidad Building & Loan Association (1999-2013) when that organisation purchased EFPA investments and also when those sums were recovered during the bailout via the issue of 20-year bonds.

On Thursday, 22nd March 2018, the Ministry of Finance & The Economy, sent details of EFPA payments (in partial satisfaction of the Appeal Court’s Consent Order of 24th January 2018) under cover of a transmittal letter from the Office of the Chief State Solicitor.

The details provided are for payments of $10.8 Billion in Public Money to EFPA account holders between March 2011 and March 2015. That was an average payout of over $220M TTD per month in that four-year period and would correspond with the September 2011 Parliamentary approval for an additional $10.7 Billion to be spent on the CL Financial bailout. This all raises interesting issues as to the timing of these payments, as shown in this table –

PERIOD Minister of Finance statements on bailout costs EFPA payment details from Ministry of Finance COMMENTS
BEFORE 3rd April 2012 affidavit of Winston Dookeran Para 21 “…(a) $5.0Bn already provided to CLICO;
(b) $7.0Bn paid to holders of the EFPA…”		 $6,229,920,482 There is an apparent discrepancy between these figures in the amount of $770,079,518
BETWEEN 3rd April 2012 and 1st October 2012 “…The cost to the national community has been substantial—an amount of $19.7 billion or 13.0 per cent of our current GDP $3,144,270,326 Larry Howai’s 2013 budget statement was that $7.7 Billion had been spent on the CLF bailout after Winston Dookeran’s affidavit. The details from the Ministry of Finance show that only $3.144 Billion of that could be attributable to EFPA payments.
AFTER 1st October 2012 Estimates have ranged from $20 Billion to the $27.7 Billion estimate on 10th May 2017 by the current Minister, Colm Imbert. $1,449,184,402 The Public Money spent after that date exceeds an estimated $6.0 Billion, only a part of which went to EFPA account holders.
$10,823,375,210

Continue reading “CL Financial bailout – the EFPA Details, part one” →

VIDEO: Webinar featuring Caribbean Economist Marla Dukharan and leading Trinidadian Transparency Activist Afra Raymond

VIDEO: Webinar featuring Caribbean Economist Marla Dukharan and leading Trinidadian Transparency Activist Afra Raymond

This is the video for the recent webinar in which we discuss the recently-released Corruption Perception Index:

  • The current state of corruption in Trinidad & Tobago
  • From accountability to enforcement: What is missing?
  • Specific steps that need to be taken to improve transparency

Programme Date: 6 March 2018
Programme length: 57:12

AUDIO: Interview on Business corner on Power 102 FM – 5 March 2018

power102fmPower 102.1 FM interview with Ms Sandrine Rattan on e-tendering within the new Public Procurement system with Afra Raymond, Moonilal Lalchan, Chairman of the Office of Procurement Regulation and Keino Cox, Chairman of TSTT’s Tenders Committee. Audio courtesy Power 102 FM

  • Programme date: Monday 5th February 2018
  • Programme length:  00:09:06 and 00:16:16


Property Matters – Digital Transformation in our Tourism?

Property Matters – Digital Transformation in our Tourism?

On 2 February 2018, the Ministry of Tourism announced its upcoming symposium – ‘Digital Transformation within the Tourism Sector‘ – as a major event on Friday 23 February 2018, in conjunction with Massy Technologies and featuring speakers from Microsoft and IBM.

This is an ambitious project intended to examine big-data, the cloud, the digital customer experience and the prospects of the hospitality industry in our country. As such, these proposals should have our principled support, but there is real cause for a pause here, given the distinct reluctance of the State’s agencies to answer our queries on the agreements and performance of the large State-owned hotels.

The three largest hotels in our country are State-owned – Trinidad Hilton; Magdalena Grand (formerly known as Tobago Hilton) and Hyatt Regency – comprising about 45% of the established hotel rooms, at the better end of the market. The amount of Public Money invested via capital outlay in those hotels is estimated, from the public record, in the first sidebar. But what is of deeper interest to me is that far larger sums of money are generated in the operations of those hotels than the capital spent to create the actual facilities. Those sums are spent on rooms, meals, drinks, rentals for functions and so on.

We almost never get any real open discussion on the actual revenues of these hotels or the arrangements for sharing those monies between the State as property owner and the hotel operator. Continue reading “Property Matters – Digital Transformation in our Tourism?” →

Property Matters – State land acquisition

Property Matters – State land acquisition

Recent concerns over the State’s land acquisition process, especially in relation to the Curepe Interchange project, have virtually coincided with the appointment on 12th January 2018 of the first Board for the Office of Procurement Regulation (OPR).

The $222M contract for this project was awarded in August 2017 to China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) by National infrastructure Development Co. (NIDCO). NIDCO is one of the implementing agencies for the Ministry of Works and Transport, which is headed by Senator Rohan Sinanan. Twenty-Two parcels of private land have to be acquired to build this interchange between the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway and the Southern Main Road. That includes a part of the disused Kay-Donna Drive-Inn Cinema, which is at the south-western corner of that intersection.

rohan sinanan
Sen. Rohan Sinanan

Minister Sinanan has confirmed his part-ownership of the Kay-Donna property, which, together with the long-standing problems within the State’s land acquisition process, have given ground to the sceptics. In my view Minister Sinanan’s position is a direct conflict of interest, if ever I saw one. That said, it is not an irremediable conflict, indeed it must be remedied, since we ought not to either halt this project or delude ourselves to think that recusal is some kind of cure for this Executive Proximity.

This situation is a learning opportunity to re-establish some proper standards of transparency and accountability in the land acquisition process and for the OPR to issue strong regulations to assure best practices for the future. This article will outline the key issues in State land acquisitions and propose a best practice approach which could ease some of the legitimate concerns arising in relation to the conflicted situation of Minister Sinanan. Continue reading “Property Matters – State land acquisition” →

CL Financial bailout – 2017 summary

clf-bailout

This first article for 2018 is my summary of the key issues emerging from the ongoing CL Financial bailout. Yes, the bailout started on Friday 30th January 2009 and nine years later we are still at it. We have spent at least five times more than the original estimated cost, yet the situation remains essentially unresolved.

One of the most alarming aspects of this bailout has been the staggering increase in the amount of Public Money spent. The original cost was estimated to be $5.0Bn and we were told by the Minister of Finance in his Mid-Term Budget Review on 10th May 2017 that – “…the Government may be owed up to $27.7 billion by the CLF Group…”.

Despite that huge increase in expense, about 15,000 policyholders are still to be paid, so who got that $27.7 Billion in Public Money? I sued since 2012, under the Freedom of Information Act to get details of those payments and the audited accounts of the CLF group. Despite the change of government in September 2015, after my High Court win in July of that year, the State has continued its appeal against that High Court ruling. The Appeal Court hearing of my case is set for 24th January 2018, so we will be seeing more of this issue of State secrecy in huge expenditure.
Continue reading “CL Financial bailout – 2017 summary” →

Property Matters – The Procurement Gap

Property Matters – The Procurement Gap

There is now a significant and unacceptable delay in implementing the new Public Procurement system. The Public Procurement & Disposal of Public Property law was Act No 1 of 2015, so come January 2018, it will have been passed by Parliament three years ago. When the current administration took office in September 2015, several amendments were made and those were passed by Parliament in June 2016 as Act No 5 of 2016.

Although I am convinced that this implementation is taking too long, it is noteworthy that the Central Tenders Board Act of 1961, was only activated by the swearing-in of the first Central Tenders’ Board in 1966. It took five years to implement that important Act with all the necessary arrangements in place such as offices, staff, stationery and so on.

So what is causing these delays with this critical new law? Apart from the law itself, which is now in place, there are three pre-conditions to the new system being started –

  1. Training – Given that the new Act imposes strict penalties all of which are custodial, there is a serious need for proper training. Every organ of the State which transacts in Public Money must have a named Procurement Officer, who will bear responsibility for those transactions under the new Act. The training started since 2014, with most of the Ministries and State Agencies having been prepared by now;
  2. Budget – The new Act will be operated by the Office of Procurement Regulation (OPR) and funding for that new Institution was approved in 2017;
  3. Appointment of Board – The OPR will be controlled by a Board which is appointed by the President of the Republic, after consultation with the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition (S10 of the Act refers). That is the significant delay with which we are faced at this stage. There have been two invitations to apply for the full-time positions of Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the OPR Board. In both cases all the submissions have not been acknowledged, so there is an apparent gap at that level.

The Private Sector Civil Society (PSCS) Group is a lobby formed to push for this critical new law, operating under the Chairmanship of my erstwhile colleague, former JCC President and Chaconia Medal (Gold) holder, Winston Riley. The members of that group are the JCC; the T&T Manufacturers’ Association; T&T Chamber of Industry and Commerce; the American Chamber of Commerce; the T&T Transparency Institute; the T&T Coalition of Service Industries; Local Content Chamber and the Federation of Independent Trade Unions and NGOs (FITUN).

The PSCS Group pointed out in its 30th November 2017 letter to President Carmona –

“…The PSCSG has privately indicated to you on May 1st, 2017 its objection to the involvement of the Office of the President and of the Ministry of Finance as both bodies are listed under section 5 of the ACT as a public body and thus subject to the Act…”

That objection to the involvement of the Office of the President in the process for recruitment of the OPR Board is fundamentally untenable, for two reasons. Firstly, the proposal for that approach emanated from the said PSCS group and was accepted by Parliament, which leads to the second point, that the appointment procedure is the one stipulated by the Act.

Open letter to President Carmona

On Tuesday 12th December 2017, I published an open letter to President Carmona together with my colleagues, Reginald Dumas and Victor Hart, calling on him to make these appointments in as transparent and open a manner as possible. That letter was carried as a ‘letter to the editor’ in the Guardian of Wednesday 13th and was also the subject of a Newsday article on Thursday 14th – ‘President urged to give Procurement details‘.

The large-scale waste and theft of Public Money remains one of the most serious concerns for our country and the full implementation of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property Act is therefore a matter of very high priority. That implementation should be done in a manner which fosters confidence and sets the table for a new era of proper dealings in the conduct of our nation’s public affairs.

We are encouraged by the 2nd November 2017 Press Releases from the Office of the President and the Ministry of Finance, both stating that the appointment of the Board for the Office of Procurement Regulation is anticipated to be made by the end of this month, December 2017.

As a matter of best practice in these most crucial appointments, the public should be apprised of the details of the selection process. This is simply not a matter we can afford to have go awry, since there is such a dire need for transactions using our increasingly limited Public Money to be properly supervised.

As a parallel example, we would offer for adoption the 39th recommendation of the Uff Report:

“The reviewing of tenders and the making of decisions upon the award of contracts should be undertaken in as transparent a manner as possible, including demonstrating clear compliance with procurement rules, so as to allay suspicion of improper actions or potential corrupt influences.”

The point is that contracts, particularly large-scale, shou ld not be awarded without elementary transparency so that the public can be assured of straight dealings. The appointment of the Procurement Regulator will be one of the most critical contract awards in the history of our Republic, albeit an employment contract.

We are therefore requesting, in the public interest, that the following details be published before the appointments are made:

  • the selection process being used;
  • the identity of the firm or personnel implementing that process;
  • the identity of the shortlisted applicants.

We anticipate an early and positive reply in the collective interest of instilling and maintaining a high degree of public confidence in the processes involved in this critical matter.

We await your response.

Reginald Dumas

Victor Hart

Afra Raymond