The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas can make “a real dent” in its anti-corruption standing if it passes four critical laws this year, a governance reformer argued yesterday, having “missed the opportunity” in 2022.

Matt Aubry, the Organisation for Responsible Governance’s (ORG) executive director, told Tribune Business that enacting reforms to the Public Procurement Act and Public Disclosures Act, as well as passing legislation to create an Integrity Commission and Ombudsman, will send observers a message that The Bahamas is serious about combating corruption.

He spoke out after The Bahamas held its position in Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index, ranking as the world’s 30th least corrupt nation in 2022 and maintaining the same ‘64 out of 100’ score it achieved in the prior year. This nation rated better than the likes of Spain, Italy and Portugal, all nations that form part of the European Union (EU) which has blacklisted The Bahamas for being ‘uncooperative’ on tax matters.

But Mr Aubry, while agreeing it was positive The Bahamas had maintained its perception as the second least corruption nation in the Caribbean behind only Barbados, added that the Transparency International index also indicated it was doing too little to improve the status quo in the world’s eyes.

“Indexes are important in several instances and, at the same time, they are not fully reflective,” the ORG chief told this newspaper. “It’s important to recognise we haven’t dropped. But we were at the International Anti-Corruption Conference in Washington D. C. last December and we were participating with hundreds of organisations from around the world.

“What we’re learning is that corruption has so many destructive impacts at all levels on countries. There’s wastage from government procurement contracts not coming to fruition, citizens have to “pay to play” to access services, and there’s a lack of efficiency and effectiveness in government spending and decision-making. Those things are clearly present in our circumstance.”

Mr Aubry said, when viewed from another angle, 2022 was thus “a missed opportunity” for The Bahamas to improve both its standing in the Transparency International rankings and reduce perceptions of corruption that may exist internationally. He added that reforms had been enacted, but the country was receiving little credit for them.

“There are many things we are doing now that involve changes. We have greater reliance on technology, the digitisation of government services,” he added. “We have a Procurement Act that was passed and, had we followed it, it would have introduced a different level of transparency and integrity into government procurement.... If we bring these things to fruition, there should be a return on that,”

The ORG chief said The Bahamas was thus far failing to link such reforms together, with the Transparency International index showing it had “not really moved forward the way we could” and “moved us away from an environment where corruption flourishes”.

He added that there were real benefits to be gained from being “seen as a place where corruption does not flourish”, including individuals and companies more willing to follow the rule of and pay due taxes. The Bahamian business environment will also become more competitive, with the best qualified bidders winning government contracts so that tax dollars are put to their best and most efficient use.

High-quality investors, as opposed to rogue operators, will also be attracted to do business in and with The Bahamas, Mr Aubry said. “What we gain from this has economic benefits as well as social ones,” he explained. “It requires us to think about what we do in pushing forward legislative reform.”

Pointing to the long-promised implementation of the Freedom of Information Act as an example, he added that The Bahamas needs “to make sure that advances; we haven’t moved it forward”. Mr Aubry continued: “Let’s look at how we empower our citizens by understanding the damage and cost of encouraging low-level corruption to move things along.

“It further disenfranchises those that have less when we encourage a ‘pay to play’ environment, and now with costs rising people have less to pay if they’re required to give lunch money and tip money to access government services.” Besides reforms to the Public Procurement Act and Public Disclosures Act, Mr Aubry again urged the Government to move ahead with the Integrity Commission and Ombudsman Bills that did not proceed under its predecessor.

Noting that both were campaign pledges in the Progressive Liberal Party’s (PLP) so-called Blueprint for Change, he argued: “If we put that forward as a priority in the next year we will have four significant pieces of legislation that advance and make a real dent in corruption perceptions of The Bahamas, make us a benchmark for the region, and create tangible opportunities for people in small business and elsewhere to have greater trust that the taxes they pay will advance multiple effects they see in their day-to-day lives.”

Mr Aubry said ORG will be hosting an Anti-Corruption Symposium on March 3 that aims to bring government, civil society, non-profits and the private sector together to identify “the gaps we have to fill” and advance the cause of greater transparency and accountability throughout Bahamian society.