The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Government last night finally released its long-awaited public procurement disclosure which revealed the awarding of 843 contracts worth a total $140m via its online portal over the ten months to end-June 2023.

The Ministry of Finance, which issued the information at around 10pm last night, described compliance with the new Public Procurement Act - and the awarding of contracts via the Go Bonfire online portal - as “a continual process” that requires constant training of staff across the Government’s various procuring ministries and agencies.

“We are aware that awarding opportunities in the portal is a continual process and, at times, requires assistance from technical officers in the Procurement Department. Further, it is also noteworthy that training in the application of the portal is ongoing, and considering nine months of adjusting to the Procurement Act and applying it to the portal, efforts from staff attached to procurement from various procurement entities must be lauded,” it said.

Most of the contract awards detailed were for sums in the tens and hundreds of thousands. The largest, some $34.245m, went to Bahamas Hot Mix (BHM) for airside construction works at Exuma International Airport - a sum that represented 24.5 percent, or almost one-quarter or one dollar out of every four of the collective $139.591m that was awarded.

Other significant awards included $19.615m to Ranmar Precision Development for Ragged Island’s school and multi-purpose centre; $13.77m to Marlin Enterprises for road repairs in Red Bays, Andros; $9.559m to Knowles Construction for runway repairs at the Arthur’s Town airport in Cat Island; and $4.332m to Noontide Management Group to replace the roof at the Ministry of Finance’s Sir Cecil Wallace-Whitfield building.

A further $4.053m was awarded to Trade Wind Builders to renovate the Supreme Court building; $3.355m to DigieSoft to create an online portal for the payment of charter and boating-related fees; $1.937m to Skye’s Construction for repairs to Eight Mile Rock high school’s gymnasium; $1.317m to Electro Telecom for an electrical assessment and lighting at the Thomas A. Robinson stadium; and $1.323m to SunRise Communications to digitise and create a website for the Post Office.

G&L Construction was awarded $2.502m for the redevelopment of Clifford Park and its surroundings; Scorpio Construction was handed $2.327m for a proposed assembly/lunch pavilion at Uriah McPhee Primary School; and $1.657m was awarded to Patrick McDonald Construction for the Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute’s (BTVI) Freeport campus.

The contract awards cover the nine months from September 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023. They do not, though, include all the contracts issued by either the Davis administration during most of its first year in office or those awarded during the final days of the Minnis administration.

The original Public Procurement Act, which came into effect on September 1, 2021, but has now been repealed and replaced, required from that moment on that all government contracts be disclosed within 60 days of their issuance. The Government was supposed to disclose the name and address of winning bidders, the procuring entity, the procurement selection method and the value of the contract.

The revised Public Procurement Act took effect on July 1 this year. Last night’s release provides the value of the contract awards, identifies the procuring entity and procurement vendor, plus the winning bidder, but provides no address for the latter or any further details.

The Government has frequently come under attack from Michael Pintard, leader of the Opposition, and other members of the Free National Movement (FNM) who have accused it of deliberately failing to comply with the Public Procurement Act and especially its provisions demanding greater disclosures, openness and transparency around the awarding of government contracts.

But Michael Halkitis, minister of economic affairs, recently asserted there was “never any sort of desire or intention to circumvent” the Public Procurement Act’s requirements as he blamed any non-compliance on the need to put in place supporting infrastructure.

He added that the Davis administration has had to ensure public officials are fully trained and equipped to implement the Act’s legally-mandated requirements. It has also had to appoint a chief procurement officer, and implement the necessary software.

“In order to really effect it, there was a large infrastructure that had to be put in place at the back end of it,” Mr Halkitis said of the Act. “For example, the appointment of a chief procurement officer, the training of procurement committees in not only the Ministry of Finance, but in every single ministry and government agency. We’re talking about IT, acquiring the IT and getting people trained up on it, and so that is what we have been doing for the last, you know, 18 months.

“We are at a position right now where we have just about completed the training. And there are some of the contracts that have to be uploaded. We think we are almost at a position where those are completed. So, you know, we will begin to do that. We can look for that in the coming weeks.”

Mr Halkitis added: “But I would just like to say this now. [There] never was any sort of desire or intention to circumvent but, you know, it’s very, very easy to go into Parliament and pass a law and say we’re doing this and doing that. You know, we see a number of pieces of legislation where we have to go back now.

“At the back end of it, there are a lot of requirements that we had to do. So the public will see that very shortly. We’re committed to doing it, those few agencies that have not fully uploaded. We have people working on that now to get that done as soon as possible. So you’ll see that shortly…definitely before the end of the year.”