The Tribune

By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

Tribune Staff Reporter

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

THE government is still not complying with the Public Procurement Act’s requirement to be transparent about contract awards, with Economic Affairs Minister Michael Halkitis saying this should change before the end of the year.

The law requires the government to disclose the name and address of winning bidders, the procuring entity, the procurement selection method and the award amount within 60 days of the contract award.

However, since assuming office, the Davis administration has failed to do this. The Minnis administration was voted out of office around the time the original procurement law came into force.

Financial Secretary Simon Wilson has said the government would publicise contract awards when the reporting capacity of its procurement system, the GoBonfire eProcurement Platform, improves.

In February, Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis said the Ministry of Finance was finalising a report listing contracts awarded by the government since the Progressive Liberal Party won the election. Nearly eight months later, the report has still not been released.

During a press briefing at the Office of the Prime Minister yesterday, Mr Halkitis said much work was required to make the Public Procurement Act work.

“For example, the appointment of a chief procurement, the training of procurement committees not only in the Ministry of Finance but in every single ministry and government agency,” he said.

“We are talking about acquiring IT and getting people trained up on it and so that is what we have been doing for the last 18 months.”

“I would just like to say there is never any sort of desire or intention to circumvent, but it’s very, very easy to go into Parliament and pass a law and say we are doing this and we are doing that.

“You know, we see it with a number of pieces of legislation where we have to go back. I can point to one that we had, which is when we changed the Department of Statistics to the Bahamas National Statistical Institution.

“It had some very good provisions in there, but it also had a lot of provisions that required monetary outlay, training, and amendments to other pieces of legislation. So, you know, it’s good, people say, ‘okay you publish it and you get transparency’. Yes, we agree, but at the end of it, there are lot of requirements that we had to do.”

In July, Bahamas Contractors Association President Leonard Sands said notifying the public about contract awards is not as complicated as government officials suggest.

“Somebody,” he said, “had to sign a document. You know exactly who that person was who signed it, okay? All of the things they tell you are garbage responses to their intention to willfully hide information from the public.”