The Tribune

WHEN the current administration came into power, it failed to publish contracts that it handed out despite that being the law of the land.

There were problems with the law, they said, and so they would amend the law. So said, so done.

Now the problem is that the government is not yet complying with its own law, that it said was needed, that it passed, and that it is not obeying.

Last month, The Tribune spoke to Financial Secretary Simon Wilson about the matter – who said that following the law was a “work in progress”.

The common citizen does not have the luxury of telling a police officer who detains them that for them following the law is a “work in progress”, so why should government?

He said that the government has made “great strides” in following the requirements of the Public Procurement Act that the government itself enacted.

He also said at the time that he could not say when the government would comply with the requirement to disclose contract awards but that they were working on it.

That was on July 24. FNM leader Michael Pintard has now, rightly, called the government out on the matter.

He pointed out that the law requires the government to disclose details of winning contracts within 60 days of the award, adding: “After nearly two years in office, this hapless and wholly unaccountable PLP government is – according to the Ministry of Finance – still not ready to provide this information to the Bahamian public.”

He called it “contemptible nonsense”, pointing to the long-held practice of publishing public notices in the newspaper for such matters.

He claimed that “the only reason the public is not getting this information is because the prime minister and his Cabinet colleagues are intentionally hiding information from the public.”

Now perhaps he is overstating there. To borrow Hanlon’s razor, “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” Or for that matter, incompetence.

So which is it? Is the government unwilling to provide the information, or simply unable to follow the law that it created?

The loser in all of this is that same Bahamian citizen who cannot wave aside a police officer’s intervention. That same citizen who has no clue if a contract has been given to any particular friend, family or lover. That same citizen whose taxes pay for the contracts the government hands out.

As we pointed out in this column only last month – on another issue, that of PLP chairman Fred Mitchell’s words of advice to Immigration Minister Keith Bell not to respond to questions over matters in his ministry – it is this government that says it is committed to transparency. In his first speech as Prime Minister, Philip “Brave” Davis, said he committed “to lifting the veil of secrecy on that which has gone before us, so that all of the arrangements under which we have to live are transparent, and those who authored them are accountable”.

Mr Bell seems to have taken Mr Mitchell’s advice and has disappeared from view despite outstanding questions, and there seems little in the way of transparency when it comes to publishing contract awards.

If Mr Davis truly did commit to transparency, then it is time he called his own government to account – or else his words will ring hollow.

There is no reason for secrecy in the matters on the table – and the government agrees or it would not have passed the law that it did.

It is time to follow the law.