Antigua and Barbuda
United Progressive Party (UPP) caretaker for All Saints West, attorney Harold Lovell, has joined calls in demanding the immediate resignation of the Minister of Public Works over what he describes as a massive breakdown in governance at the ministry.
The government has discovered that over $15 million was spent on vehicles without the proper authorization from the Cabinet. These purchases were reportedly made through the Ministry of Works, which is headed by the Prime Minister’s wife, Maria Browne.
Speaking on Observer radio’s Knight at Night’s program on Wednesday, Lovell said the vehicle procurement scandal demonstrates that the minister is either grossly negligent or part of the problem, and should tender her resignation.
“You’re going to tell me that you’re a minister and you have been put on the job to watch the cheese; you have been told that irregularities are taking place, look out, careful and two years later you have the scandal of scandals.
“And obviously she ought to have known and if she did not know it means that she’s not fit for the position that she’s now holding, that’s it. That’s nothing personal,” Lovell said.
He pointed out that under section 78.1 of the Constitution of Antigua and Barbuda, the minister of Public Works is required to exercise direction and control over the ministry and supervise the Permanent Secretary.
Reports are that two years ago, officials discovered problems at the ministry and claimed to have put systems in place, including requiring Cabinet decisions before vehicles could be sold to dealers.
Lovell said “when you have to resort to that, that is telling the world that you have lost control. You have lost control because a cabinet decision is an internal control mechanism.”
He stressed that ministerial responsibility demands accountability when such failures occur. He said ministers facing such scandals should not wait to be told to leave.
“When you have a breakdown of this magnitude, the minister responsible must do the honourable thing. You think the word honourable this and honourable that, honourable minister those are not just words that you just throw around, they mean something. The word honourable means something, it means you do the honorable thing.
“So, when something like this happens under your watch people don’t have to tell you to go, you do the honourable thing. You say I tender my resignation because something like this happening under your watch it shows that you are either grossly negligent or you’re part of the problem,” he said.
Lovell also criticized Prime Minister Gaston Browne’s handling of the matter, accusing him of going on his radio station to selectively present facts while shielding those he wanted to protect who were close to him. He accused prime minister of deliberately naming and shaming certain individuals without due process.
“He set himself up as the complainer. He set himself up as the investigator. He was the prosecutor. He was the judge, and he was the jury. That’s a dictatorship,” Lovell charged.
The UPP representative joined calls for a full independent public inquiry into the scandal, saying the prime minister’s one-sided approach to justice was unacceptable.
“We need to have a full investigation into this matter, and we need to expose all the real wrongdoings. We need to know the failings of the prime minister. Was it deliberate?” Lovell queried.
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Bahamas
I was recently asked what my motive was for writing these articles on public procurement in The Bahamas, and what was I hoping to gain from doing so? A friend also told me that the truth may be an offense, but it is not a sin.
My answer to the question was that, as a public procurement professional, I am obligated to share the knowledge and experience I have gained in this profession with my colleagues and the Bahamian people, particularly through training in collaboration with institutions such as the University of the Bahamas. These articles provide them with information, insights and tools so that they can face whatever challenges await in their day-to-day work or decision-making.
Today, I want to examine the Public Procurement Department and the role of the chief procurement officer. The Bahamas Public Procurement Act, in section six, states: Continuation of the Public Procurement Department
(1) The department established under section six of the repealed Act, known as the Public Procurement Department, is continued for the purposes of this Act.
(2) The Department shall consist of a chief procurement officer who shall be responsible for the day-to-day management of the Department and other officers as may be necessary to carry out the functions of the Department.
Section nine then deals with the appointment of the chief procurement officer. It states: The chief procurement officer shall be appointed by the Governor-General, acting on the advice of the Public Service Commission, after consultation with the minister on such terms and conditions as the Governor-General may determine.
Now let us look at the significant difference between The Bahamas and Jamaica’s Public Procurement Act, particularly clauses 6 (1) and (2): In six (1), the Jamaican Act states: “There is hereby established a unit to be called the Office Establishment of Public Procurement Policy, which shall be under the direction of the Office of the Financial Secretary.”
And clause six (2) in the Jamaican law adds: “The Financial Secretary shall assign to the Office, in such numbers as may, from time to time, be necessary, public officers with training and experience in procurement, one of whom shall be appointed as the head of the Office and designated as the Chief Public Procurement Policy Officer.”
Note that the Jamaican Public Procurement Act emphasises that the officers and chief public procurement policy officer assigned to the Public Procurement Department should be trained and experienced in public procurement. As one of the drafters of the Bahamian Public Procurement Act, I wish to be the first to apologise for this oversight for not ensuring that our law stated the same.
In 2021, the Minnis administration organised the Public Procurement Department, appointed an acting chief procurement officer and doing the exact opposite of what the Jamaican Act required. During the organising of the Department just one officer had formal training in procurement, and he has since left allegedly totally frustrated by his superiors’ lack of procurement knowledge.
Appointments of persons to senior positions, but who lack the requisite knowledge and experience, can be catastrophic and demoralising to other procurement officers. It is like appointing a butcher to manage a centralised procurement unit to procure goods, services and works, and then wondering why your quarterly budget is about to be spent in one month.
By the end of August, another group of students from various ministries and state-owned enterprises will have completed the nine month public procurement and logistics course offered by the University of the Bahamas, making 30 persons to-date. They will be expecting the Public Procurement Department to have the type of leadership that will ensure – four years since the enactment of the Public Procurement Act – that they will have been invited to some type of forum to discuss future career paths, pay structure, procurement regulations and standard operating procedure manuals.
Grim Innocent Salima, a member of the Chartered Institute for Procurement and Supply, posted the following on the Institute’s Community page: “In public procurement, a standard operating procurement procedures document sets out detailed rules, processes and procedures for procurement within the organisation, and provides further guidance for carrying out procurement activities.
“It serves as operational guidance for all staff involved in any stage of procurement by describing procurement processes and procedures. Its overarching aim is to ensure that operations are conducted economically, efficiently and effectively, whilst adhering to the principles of good governance as well as international standards that are applicable to procurement.”
As indicated, it has been four years since the Public Procurement Act was enacted and none of this has materialised. Simon Wilson, the Ministry of Finance’s financial secretary, speaking at the Ministry of National Security’s multi-agency financial accounting conclave on July 7, warned that fragmented decision-making, not red tape, is the real threat to efficiency. “Too often we make decisions in silos,” he said. “We don’t see how one agency’s decision affects another.” It clearly means that these agencies are not getting guidance, in the form of policies, to avoid making decisions in isolation. Which department is responsible?
Dr John Glen, a Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS) economist, writing in the CIPS Pulse 2025 first quarter edition, wrote: “The increased volatility and uncertainty driven by geo-political factors, and increased and uncertain tariff regimes, has led – not unexpectedly – to an increased perception by procurement professionals of the risk in global supply chains.
“The turbulent global environment in which procurement professionals now operate will put additional pressure on our colleagues to ensure that global supply chains continue to operate effectively and efficiently.”
So, we must ask ourselves: Do we have procurement officers in the Procurement Department who understand strategic sourcing, supplier management, contract negotiation, risk assessment, compliance, cost effectiveness and ethical standards? You be the judge.
I will continuously state that experienced and qualified procurement specialists in our Public Procurement Department would recognise the strategic importance of transparent, accountable procurement in the cost efficient delivery of goods, works and services, and how to use these as a vital weapon against corruption. Their confidence, knowledge and experience can be a deterrent in preventing egotistical, petty, narcissistic-minded superiors from micro-managing and manipulating the Department. We have qualified and experienced public procurement officers in The Bahamas who we can use. It should not be because you are a political ally, and end up in the position without the experience and training or, like one would say, it is him or me just to stifle one with the requisite qualifications.
References: Lynch T., Jorge A., Public Procurement and Contract Administration
NB: Daniel Ferguson, FCIPS, is a retired chief petty officer from the Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF), lead investigator on the 2004 Lorequin Commission of Inquiry, a former chief supplies officer of the Ministry of Health, procurement consultant at the Ministry of Finance, adjunct facilitator on public procurement at the University of the Bahamas, and former component co-ordinator for the IDB-sponsored public financial management reform project, in particular public procurement reform.
He led the drafting team for the development of the Public Procurement Act 2021 and public procurement regulations, and assisted with the creation of the University of the Bahamas professional procurement officers training framework while managing the development of the e-procurement supplier registry. He is a chartered member of the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply with more than 25 years’ experience in public procurement. He was the Caribbean’s representative to the International Network of Public Procurement Officers for the years 2019-2021.
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Trinidad and Tobago
In a disclosure during T&T’s 2025 Mid-Year Budget Review last Wednesday, Attorney General John Jeremie revealed a $200 million “black hole” in legal fees within his ministry—a revelation that has ignited concerns over fiscal discipline, procurement practices and the broader culture of accountability in public finance.
Jeremie alleged that a significant portion of these fees were paid to individuals closely associated with the former prime minister, including golfing partners, before the last general election.
He emphasised that many of these payments were made without clear evidence of value received, and he has since halted the acceptance of new invoices.
With taxpayers now footing the bill, the issue raises questions about transparency and whether the public is receiving value for money.
Stakeholders including former head of Trinidad and Tobago’s Office of Procurement Regulation (OPR), Moonilal Lalchan told the Business Guardian that people may start to question whether their taxes are being put to good use, noting that this could also erode trust in public institutions.
“…It lends to no accountability, I would say, in a nutshell…No accountability could also mean corruption… It could lead to a lot of practices that are not acceptable in terms of best practice and so on, which by virtue of the looseness of the situation could lead to corruption or collusion, more or less,” Lalchan said.
He pointed to the fact that Section 7 of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property Act, excluded legal services meaning it is not under full scrutiny, among other services.
Stating that the the matter of the “black hole” was brought to the fore by the Attorney General, Lalchan said the AG should therefore, if he is concerned, deal with it with a level of alacrity.
Meanwhile, Afra Raymond, former president of the Joint Consultative Council for the Construction Industry (JCC), said he is not at all inspired by the disclosure of “this or that legal fee etc,” as he emphasised that what is need is a clear position from the UNC on the repeal of those “damaging” exemptions from the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property Act (PPDPPA).
He said these must now be repealed so that the public interest could be well-served by independent oversight by the OPR, as intended when the People’s Partnership (PP), of which the current ruling United National Congress was part, passed the parent legislation – Act No 1 of 2015.
If the UNC means to do better, it has to do differently, Raymond added.
“I am referring to the fact that on Friday December 4, 2020 our Parliament passed the third set of amendments to the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property Act (The Act). These changes were a serious blow to the long-term campaign for proper control over transactions in public money and are extremely detrimental to the public interest.
“Legal and accounting/auditing services are essential to govern transactions in public money as required by the Act, so how does one justify excluding those from OPR oversight?,” Raymond said.
He further explained that the removal of legal, accounting/auditing, medical fees and financial services from OPR oversight was risible when one considers the strong and repeated statements as to concerns over the alleged legal fees scandals.
Raymond also noted that in the “bad-old-days” of the previous PNM administration then Attorney General (AG), Faris Al Rawi, was “making a meal of the serious allegations of massive legal fees fraud against former PP AG Ananad Ramlogan SC and Gerald Ramdeen – the sum allegedly mis-appropriated was in the $1.0 billion region…at the very same time, the then Finance Minister, Colm Imbert, was exempting expenditure on legal fees from the oversight of the Office of Procurement Regulation (OPR). Literally incredible, but that is what really happened in this country.”
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Dominican Republic
THE government of the Dominican Republic has launched an international tender for the first phase of a new monorail line in Santo Domingo. The project is designed to ease congestion and expand capacity in the capital’s rapidly growing public transport network.
The tender, published by the Trust for the Development of the Dominican Republic’s Mass Tranpsort System (Fitram), covers engineering design, civil works, and related systems for a 10.5km line with 12 stations. Bids are due by October 23. Fitram will oversee procurement, construction and delivery of the new line.
Alignment
The first phase will run from Charles de Gaulle Avenue at the King Juan Carlos Bridge in Santo Domingo East to the Olympic Centre in the National District, providing interchange with metro lines 1 and 2. According to Fitram, the new line will serve a catchment area of more than 1 million residents and is forecast to carry 306,000 passengers daily, with an initial peak capacity of 12,500 passengers per hour per direction.
The line will initially operate with four-car trains with capacity for 562 passengers, allowing the system to carry up to 22,480 passengers per hour per direction at 90-second headways. Infrastructure is designed accommodate six-car trains in the future, increasing capacity to 34,160 passengers per hour per direction.
Future phases will extend the monorail west to Pintura, where it will connect with cable car Line 3, and to the Duarte Highway, providing an interchange with metro Line 2C at Los Alcarrizos. Together with the city’s metro and cable car lines, the monorail will form a core element of the Santo Domingo Integrated Transport System (SIT-SD), aimed at shifting over one million trips from private vehicles to public transport.
Santiago monorail
Construction of the Dominican Republic’s first monorail project, in Santiago de los Caballeros, is due for completion at the end of this year. The 13km fully automated line, which will have 14 stations, will connect the northwest and southeast areas of the city, with a fleet of 13 four-car Innovia 300 trains manufactured by Alstom in Canada.
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Trinidad and Tobago
Chief Secretary Farley Augustine says it is up to the Office of the Procurement Regulator, not the Tobago House of Assembly (THA). to determine whether the Tobago Rehional Health Authority (TRHA) followed proper procedure in acquiring new ambulances.
During his contribution to the THA budget debate, Augustine condemned the minority council’s pressure over the procurement.
“The member opposite and his friends have made very heavy weather, about some ambulances on the island and I want to address that before I close, because many people don’t understand how the procurement system works,” Augustine said.
He confirmed that the THA has referred the documents for external review.
“The instruction went to the TRHA since that time to send all of the procurement documents to the office of the procurement regulator. Let the office of the procurement regulator make a determination as to whether the procurement process was good or bad,” he said.
Augustine said executive members have no influence over procurement decisions.
“We don’t have any say in procurement. You know, we have no say whatsoever.
“Only a named procurement officer and the accounting officer for the division have a say and if, as an executive, we say, ‘Go buy five bales of toilet paper,’ they could just go out and buy the cheapest.
“We can’t go and tell the procurement people we don’t want this cheap brand, that is not efficient, buy this brand, it’s better.”
“We could send them the scope they tender, and then we on the back end must blindly hope that what they in fact tendered for and what they have in fact procured meets the needs that we have for the people of the island, and hope to God that they align,” he said.
The ambulance controversy surrounds a 2023 contract for 12 new ambulances that cost over $16 million. Only four vehicles have been delivered so far.
There were concerns about their condition and efficiency when they arrived. Soon after going into service one of them reportedly failed to climb a hill, raising serious questions about whether the ambulances are suitable for Tobago’s terrain.
The matter has drawn sharp criticism. Minority Leader Kelvon Morris has written to the Anti-Corruption Investigations Bureau, former acting Police Commissioner Junior Benjamin and the procurement regulator calling for a criminal probe.
IDA political leader Dr Denise Tsoiafatt-Angus has also demanded answers, saying the issue should be referred to the Integrity Commission and the Fraud Squad.
She also called for a full audit of all contracts awarded by the THA from 2021 to now.
At a press conference last month the RHA denied all allegations of wrongdoing saying if the ambulance doesn’t meet the needs to the people, the island can recover its money.
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