The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

DEPUTY Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis suggested yesterday that the United States only criticised the contract procurement methods of the Bahamas because they differ from its own practices.

He added that he is satisfied The Bahamas’ procurement process “is transparent”.

In its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the US State Department once again raised concerns about the government’s procurement process, calling it “susceptible to corruption” because it is “opaque” and does not require open public tenders nor decision reviews.

The criticism is in line with what many have been saying locally over the years.

In response yesterday, Mr Davis said: “The unfortunate fact of life is that there are many ways to skin any cat and if it is not your way it will of course spur criticism from you because you may have done a different way. I’m satisfied that our procurement process is transparent. We have built in protocols to mitigate against risk of contamination; but here again, systems and protocols are only as good as those persons who are exercising them and see them executed.”

Despite Mr Davis’ professed satisfaction in the procurement process, State Minister of Finance Michael Halkitis has often spoken about a need to improve the process.

In fact, $6m of the $33m the government recently borrowed from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to improve public financial management is aimed at modernising the process, although the specifics of this are not clear. This is not the first time the IDB has given money to the government to improve its procurement processes.

Nonetheless, Mr Davis said the authors of the US State Department report adopted untested allegations without conducting a thorough investigation.

“Most of the information upon which the report is based was printed by [the media] without any factorial basis,” he said.

Mr Davis said he is not yet sure if he considers the report constructive in its criticism and therefore worth spurring local change.

“Any criticism that is made of governance, it behooves any government who sees any constructive criticism to take note of it to see how it could improve governance protocols,” he said on the sidelines of a Chamber of Commerce conclave at the Hilton.

“But that’s if they find it to be constructive; if they don’t and it doesn’t reach that level of what I call constructive criticism that requires such an assessment then we don’t see a need to change in response to such criticism.”

In the Bahamas, individual government ministries and corporations usually award contracts worth less than $50,000 based on their own predetermined methods.

The Government Tenders Board, chaired by the financial secretary, is supposed to play a central role in determining who receives contracts worth more than $50,000 but less than $250,000.

However, in this area various ministries also play a central function.

Cabinet alone determines who gets contracts worth more than $250,000.