Dozens of public servants from Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands (BVI), Cayman Islands and Haiti are learning how to make public projects and policies work better and more effectively for their countrymen.
The officials are participating in the Caribbean Development Bank’s (CDB) Public Policy Analysis and Management and Project Cycle Management (PPAM/PCM) training workshops, which started on September 10 in Haiti, September 24 in the Cayman Islands and got underway on October 8 in the BVI and Anguilla.
“You all are doing the best thing you could ever do,” Cayman Islands Minister of Economic Development, Roy McTaggart told the participants at the opening of the training there.
He noted that in a world of ever-growing expectations of the public service, the PPAM/PCM training was critical to help public sector officials keep pace with demands.
“One thing that hasn’t changed over the years is the public’s expectations of us as public servants. It grows every day and there are new demands and there are always calls for better and more government services,” stated the Minister, adding that the training would broaden participants’ vision and perspective on public service.
The need for such training has added urgency in Anguilla, which is still recovering from the devastating impact of Hurricane Irma in 2017. This point was underscored by Chief Minister Victor Banks who outlined recent relief packages that had recently been approved to restore and enhance services in the island.
“It’s important that we bring to the table the kind of skills that will assist us in the implementation and delivery of these critical services [such as] education, port development, health, hospitals – the whole gamut of needs that we have to address. It’s timely that we have this opportunity. This will redound I expect to the benefit of Anguilla,” said Banks at the start of the training.
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EQuIP aims to strengthen the island’s education system, through the expansion and rehabilitation of four selected institutions, and overall improvements in educational leadership and instructional effectiveness, including training for teachers, principals and education officers.
“These two projects are designed to holistically address a number of the risk factors for sub-optimal educational outcomes, crime and violence, as well as deviant and anti-social behaviour that are affecting youth in a number of schools and communities across Saint Lucia. Specifically, EQuIP is expected to improve quality, equity, efficiency and effectiveness of the education system, making it responsive to the needs of diverse learners,” said Dr. Idamay Denny, Portfolio Manager, CDB.
EQuIP will place emphasis on enhancing the support provided for children with special educational needs, by assessing the institutional and infrastructural improvements needed to provide quality education and equitable access to this vulnerable group.
“The fundamental reality is such that, when we provide a platform for every child to flourish within their own right, we as a nation succeed. This is the commitment of the Department of Education, and by extension, the Government of Saint Lucia,” said Dr. Gale T. C. Rigobert, Minister of Education, Innovation, Gender Relations & Sustainable Development, Saint Lucia.
The other intervention, YEP, aims to support at-risk youth and their families, by expanding access to social services and developing new, targeted programmes.
“YEP will be implemented using an integrated, gender-responsive, social crime prevention approach that addresses some of the major challenges facing youth and families who are most disadvantaged and marginalised. This approach is critical to sustaining project benefits through the provision of multiple opportunities that facilitate social capital building and human capital formation,” said Dr. Denny.
The Project will focus on mitigating risk factors that can lead to criminal behavior, enhance employability, and support community safety and security. It will include the implementation of community-based programmes that will provide leadership development and training for participants.
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The Unity government is failing to comply with, or fully implement, its own legislation written to ensure good governance in the Cayman Islands, even as it is in the process of executing a number of costly and far-reaching public projects and contracts, the opposition leader has said. Ezzard Miller called on the administration to implement the Standards in Public Life Law, establish the necessary oversight committee for the Procurement Law and follow the requirements of the Public Authority Law. He said the Legislative Assembly passed these laws over the last few years to safeguard integrity and good governance but they are not being applied.
“The impact of this non-compliance is that solid principles of procurement and good governance are not being observed, and the necessary accountability for and management of government resources are consequently being undermined,” Miller said in a statement about the implications of government’s failure to follow its own good governance legislation.
Miller, who is chair of the Public Accounts Committee, pointed out that the Standards in Public Life Law was passed in March 2014 and amended in 2016, but no commencement order has been made to bring it into effect, despite the creation of the Commission for Standards in Public Life some eight years ago. The commission has advocated ever since for the legislation, but according to Miller, the failure to enact the law has “neutered” that board.
The Procurement Law, 2016 has been implemented but government has not established the necessary oversight body. “The result is that this law is still languishing on a shelf gathering dust,” Miller said, noting that without the oversight committee the law has no teeth.
Miller said that prior to the commencement of the law, the governor had contacted him, as leader of the opposition, to nominate a member to the commission. Miller had named Dr Sidney Ebanks in March but he has never been contacted.
“What we have essentially is a situation in which no one is minding the store, and therefore good business practices can easily be swept under the carpet,” he said. “The real losers here are the people of the Cayman Islands who must stand the cost of these projects and bear the burdens of losses and failures.”
To underscore the importance of compliance with this particular law and its regulations, Miller said that in many cases the required transparency of processes is not being followed.
Meanwhile, the Public Authorities Law, 2017 came into force on 1 June. This law sets out the roles and responsibilities of the Cabinet, ministers, chief executive officers and boards, and while this law is fully operational, Miller believes its requirements are being ignored, and he pointed to the recent appointment of the Cayman Islands Stock Exchange CEO, which he said was in violation of five sections of the law, and the Port Authority’s recent handling of recruitment and firings.
Miller added that the two biggest projects that Cayman has seen in many years, the airport development and the cruise berthing tender, are “staggering under the weight of mismanagement and non-compliance”. Miller said that in a fully compliant scenario, the Port Authority Board would assume leadership of projects like the cruise facility.
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The Guyana Police Force’s Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) is considering the opposition People’s Progressive Party’s (PPP’s) request for a probe into Cabinet’s award of a contract to a Netherlands-headquartered company to conduct a feasibility study for a new Demerara Harbour Bridge.
“The matter is now engaging the attention of the Guyana Police Force,” Head of SOCU, Special Assistant Police Commissioner, Sydney James told Opposition Chief Whip, Gail Teixeira. He also told her that her that Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan; Commissioner of Police, David Ramnarine and the Police Legal Advisor, Retired Justice Claudette Singh have been informed of her complaint.
The PPP alleges that Cabinet and Public Infrastructure Minister David Patterson violated the Public Procurement Act by warding a GY$148 million contract to LievenseCSO Engineering Contracting BV to conduct a feasibility study and design for the new Demerara Harbour Bridge because the law does not allow either party to unilaterally award contracts for goods and services without seeking the approval of the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB).
James told Teixeira that SOCU received her correspondence dated August 15, 2018 and “supporting documents” “for an investigation” by that law enforcement unit of the police force.
Teixeira has asked SOCU to consider the report by the Public Procurement Commission, which includes findings and recommendations, to conduct a “comprehensive investigation” “with a view to instituting criminal charges against the Minister of Public Infrastructure.
“Due to the seriousness of their findings and the gross violations of the Procurement Act, with particular reference to the role of the Minister of Public Infrastructure in violating the Procurement Act and the most recent Code of Conduct as outlined in the Integrity Commission, Act, I hereby call on the S.O. C.U. to take action as required under the law,” she told SOCU in her August 15, letter.
The Public Procurement Commission has deemed the award of the contract to LievenseCSO Engineering Contracting BV illegal because it was not forwarded to the NPTAB for approval and that the General Manager of the Demerara Harbour Bridge Company, Rawlston Adams inked the agreement without the approval of that company’s board.
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Some of Government’s procurement of goods and services could be tendered regionally.
So said Attorney General Dale Marshall on Thursday as he indicated that Government was currently examining both public and regional procurement legislation.
Marshall, who was speaking at a press conference at Government Headquarters, told the media when asked about transparency in government’s tendering process that important decisions are to be made about it.
“Government is going to have to make a long decision about how we spend our money,” he said. “We have less of it now than we did before and therefore getting the best value for our dollar will take on importance like no other time in our history.”
He stated that wherever possible there would be a tender process and it could involve regional partners.
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