There has been a veritable cascade of events as we went through 2017, each seemingly more gripping than the last, so it is difficult to summarise such a year. Accordingly, these are the more important issues which I covered this year and which are likely to arise again in 2018. Continue reading “2017 in Review”
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 –
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.
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‘.
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:
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
This is the interview with Fazeer Mohammed on the Morning Edition programme on TV6 where he and Reggie Dumas discuss their open letter to President Carmona on the appointment of Board of the Office of Procurement Regulation.( See letter below.) Video courtesy TV6
Programme Date: 18 December 2017
Programme Length: 00:03:39 and 00:22:30
Our Open Letter to President Carmona is here for your attention –
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
This is our Hotel Facts Seminar held at The UWI’s Noor Hassanali Auditorium on Thursday 9th November 2017 featuring Afra Raymond, David Walker and Rishi Maharaj of Disclosure Today.
We would like to thank Professor Rose-Marie Belle-Antoine, Dean of the Law Faculty, for her support, without which we would have been unable to convene this seminar. We also thank Rhoda Bharath of #newsauce and The Eternal Pantomime for being our MC/Moderator at such short notice. Video courtesy PixelPlay Media.
These are the documents from my Request for Access to Official Document(s) Under the Freedom of Information Act, 1999 from the State and the agents acting on behalf of the State, in the referenced hotels.
I have written extensively on the surfeit of maladies plaguing our governance. Now, I will be joining some of my most esteemed colleagues in a discussion around the Hotel Facts that are in desperate need of uncovering.
We have undertaken the monumental task of becoming archeologists for truth, and we are honoured to host a public discussion to put our artifacts on display.
We welcome everyone who shares a vested interest in truth discovery to join us at our Hotel Facts Seminar on Thursday at 6:00 PM in the Noor Hassanali Auditorium, The UWI, St Augustine. (The Noor Hassanali Auditorium is housed on the same site as the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES, see map below), on the western side of the main Campus of the UWI, St Augustine, adjacent to, and north of, the Institute of International Relations.)
Speakers
Afra Raymond
Rishi Maharaj CEO of Disclosure Today
David Walker
Moderator – Rhoda Bharath of The UWI’s Dept. of Modern Languages and Linguistics
Date: Thursday, 9 November, 2017
Time: 6:00 PM
Admission: FREE!
In the previous article, the most glaring lacuna in the procurement puzzle was identified as the gap between the recommendations made by the State Enterprises and the decisions taken by the Cabinet in relation to the award of large-scale contracts.
In this context, a lacuna is an informative, usually intentional, gap in a discourse. Just consider that, in all the many statements on these interlocking issues, not one person has actually said ‘Cabinet ratified this recommendation by that State Enterprise‘ or ‘Cabinet made that decision which was not recommended by this State Enterprise‘. Fascinating, really, almost as if there is a joint select decision not to discuss how they reach their decisions. In relation to the Invaders’ Bay imbroglio, I dubbed that kind of thing ‘carefully cultivated confusion‘. You see?
A gap analysis measures actual against desired performance so as to establish what are the changes needed to improve results. This article will sketch a gap analysis of this crucial stage in the public procurement process and suggest the implications of those gaps. Continue reading “Property Matters – The Gap Analysis”
This is the talk I did at the inaugural edition of the “Bussin’ Files” series at The Big Black Box in Port of Spain on Wednesday 11 October 2017. I discussed, the importance of information; our attitude to the truth; the deliberate concealment of facts; the Bernard and Uff Reports into construction sector misconduct; the CL Financial bailout; our false sense of superiority and some other matters. Video courtesy PixelPlay Media Limited.
The Tobago Ferry issue has gone from bad to worse, with at least four inquiries underway. There are now inquiries being done by:
My previous article examined the November 2007 appointment of Karen Nunez-Tesheira as our Minister of Finance by then PM, the late Patrick Manning. For whatever reason, the consternation over the appointment of Christian Mouttet to investigate the #ferrygate imbroglio is reminding me of the confusion many people felt when PM Manning made that appointment. An eerie echo from the past, in this, The Season of Reflection.
This article appears the day before the anniversary of T&T’s 55th Independence Day. This week I examine the recent claims by the CLF group and its supporters as to its Black origin and so on. Those claims can be summarised as:
‘CLF is a black-owned and controlled conglomerate which has fallen into some difficulty and had to seek a bailout…it would be a tragedy to have such a company destroyed by liquidation or otherwise by the sitting black government’
This is emerging as a key element in the Duprey campaign, so it has to be seriously scrutinised by looking at the origins of CLF, the current stance of its shareholders and the pan-Caribbean aspects of this issue. Continue reading “CL Financial bailout – the Caribbean Connection”
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