Jamaica
The long-overdue upgrade of hospital infrastructure to improve service delivery in the public healthcare system is being hampered by government red tape, Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton charged on Thursday.
“We have been criticised for paying attention to the upgrading of public-health infrastructure and giving money to the private sector,” he told the signing ceremony for the Code Care Project under which the Government is partnering with private medical institutions to clear a backlog in elective surgeries caused by the pandemic.
“I think that is a shorted-sighted view,” Tufton added before pinpointing the time-consuming procurement process as a major contributor to the delays.
“The truth is, the Code Care programme does assign substantial amounts of money to upgrade our operating theatres in three or four hospitals, but that is taking some time, and I will say with great trepidation and disappointment that we have not spent a dollar yet on the upgrading because of the procurement process,” he admitted.
“So we get the list, they say we need to get X, we need to get Y. We have the money to spend, but by the time you go through the procurement process is maybe one year before you get some of the stuff, and that is why the other complementary components are very important,” he explained. “Sometimes when we are criticised, the system – maybe for good cause – sometimes becomes a restriction for advancing the process that is taking place to upgrade some of these institutions.”
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Trinidad and Tobago
Despite an impassioned plea by Independent Senator Hazel Thompson-Ahye on November 15, there continues to be little government enthusiasm for fully proclaiming the Public Procurement and Disposal of Property Act of 2015.
Chairing a joint select committee hearing, the senator said, “The future of our country, our citizens, depends on us getting it right.”
Procurement Regulator Moonilal Lalchan supported her views, explaining that ten-30 per cent of the country’s spending is lost through procurement-related corruption – a horrifying statistic. As he said, “Think what we could do for the country (with that money) – health care, schooling and infrastructure.”
As the country grapples yet again with flooding and landslides, we wonder what state the overwhelmed and collapsing roads, bridges and drainage systems would be in, had those funds been available to repair and maintain them.
Instead, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh fretted over minor aspects of the law and spurious problems that Mr Lalchan deftly set aside.
Similarly, Port of Spain South MP Keith Scotland pondered whether misgivings expressed by the Judiciary should be addressed before proclaiming the act.
Mr Lalchan countered that they had been addressed.
An exchange of letters between the Chief Justice and the Attorney General in June included concerns about staffing to manage its procurement unit.
This was despite efforts to gut the 2015 act, including the arbitrary reduction of the regulator’s term of office from seven years to five (Mr Lalchan’s term ends in January) and the exemption of government-to-government contracts from procurement oversight.
The president of the Joint Council for the Construction Industry (JCC) Fazir Khan, meanwhile, has raised pointed concerns about what he described as the “charade” of government agencies perpetuating a status quo that all parties acknowledge has led to financial leakage in government spending for decades.
In June, AMCHAM, the TTMA, the TT Chamber and the Transparency Institute issued a joint statement calling for the legislation to be proclaimed and implemented urgently. That document lamented the unreadiness of state enterprises, which the Government can order to prepare for compliance with the law.
If there were any doubt about the importance of enforcing the procurement act, it should have been settled by the shenanigans of the THA in recent months. The new administration has run roughshod over established practices to build an ill-advised “stage in the sea,” while also taking shortcuts in procuring services for roads and road repairs.
The public procurement legislation, assented to in 2020 and acknowledged on all sides as deficient, is simply not being taken seriously.
Meanwhile, government spending continues without independent oversight and the controls and accountability guaranteed under the act.
The continued reluctance to proclaim this legislation fully does not sit well with the private sector, and should worry taxpayers,whose funds continue to be at risk of corrupt, or at best careless spending.
But as for the government, it appears to like it so.
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Trinidad and Tobago
THERE is a cost to shutting down a business. When it comes to State enterprises, it runs into hundreds of millions in Voluntary Separation Packages and it can take years.
State enterprises are mostly closed because they are inefficient and that instead of generating profits and contributing to the coffers of the country with taxes, they are actually a drain on the Treasury.
For fiscal 2023, the Government will spend about $85 million on State enterprises which have already been closed
According to the Draft Estimates of Recurrent Expenditure for fiscal 2023, sums have been earmarked for state entities that have been winding down for years:
1. The sum of $450,000 was allocated to British West Indies Airways (BWIA) for fiscal 2023. BWIA was shut down in 2016 and CAL was created and started operations in 2017.
This sum for BWIA is separate from sums allocated to its successor Caribbean Airlines (CAL) for fiscal 2023. CAL is expected to receive $85,635,130 from the Ministry of Finance for the fiscal year, a reduction of $9,364,870 the airline received in fiscal 2022..
2. The sum of $10.7 million has been allocated to Caroni (1975) Limited, an increase of $174,020 from fiscal 2022. In addition $2 million has been allocated for the settlement of claims for Caroni’s pension plan. Caroni (1975) has been closed for 20 years, yet leases to former Caroni workers, which were part of their Voluntary Separation Package (VSEP), are yet to be completed.
The Estate Management Business Development Company (EMBD), a special purpose State entity which was vested with Caroni Lands, said that it is 95 per cent complete with 130 more to go.
In 2019, Caroni (1975) chairman Jerry Hospedales revealed that since the State-owned company closed down in 2003, Government has spent $10 billion in “wrapping” it up. Hospedales said a large chunk of this money was spent on pensions, training courses, monetary benefits and residential and agricultural lands for former employees.
Its successor, the Sugar Manufacturing Company Ltd has been allocated the $4,690,600 for fiscal 2023, a decrease of $4,931,347 from fiscal 2022.
3. The Trinidad and Tobago Petroleum Company (Petrotrin) has been allocated the sum of $450,000, the same as 2022;
4. The Trinidad and Tobago Oil Company Limited (a legacy company) has also been allocated $450,000, the same as 2022;
5. The sum of $3,035,260, has been allocated to the Tourism Development Company (TDC) which is an increase from $2,889,800 in 2022. The TDC was closed in 2017.
6. The Tourism and Industrial Development Company (TIDCO), which was closed in 2005, was allocated a sum of $200,000, the same as in 2022.
7. Some $60,954,250 has been allocated to the Community Improvement Services Ltd (CISL), which was closed in 2017. In fiscal 2022, it was also allocated $60 million.
8. The Government Information Services Ltd (GISL) which was closed in 2017, has been allocated the sum of $1.5 million in fiscal 2023 after receiving no transfer or allocation in fiscal 2022.
Despite not being a State entity, a sum of $500,000 has been allocated for the Hindu Credit Union, which is in liquidation.
In addition to making transfers to former state enterprises to meet legacy issues, the Government also has debt servicing for loans that entities would have taken out during their operations.
For debt servicing for fiscal 2023, the sum of $5.9 million was allocated to Taurus Services and the sum of $16.2 million to TIDCO.
According to the Draft Estimates of Recurrent Expenditure, the sum of $1.9 million, an outstanding figure on the Government’s books for the restructuring of First Citizens, was cleared in fiscal 2022.
Despite the delay in the procurement legislation, the Government has allocated $2.6 million to the Central Tenders Board (CTB) for fiscal 2023 and $25.2 million to the Office of Procurement.
New bodies
for revenue
While it won’t generate revenue, the Ministry of Finance has allocated $100 million to the Secondary Road Rehabilitation and Improvement Company, which will fall under the Ministry of Rural Development and Local Government.
For revenue, they have allocated $19 million for the capitalisation and operationalisation of the Gambling (Gaming and Betting) Control Commission, which is a statutory body.
Last March, Finance Minister Colm Imbert appointed Stephen Tang Nian as chairman of the Commission and Stevan Thomas as deputy chairman.
However, it has not been operationalised or added revenue to the State.
“We expect to generate our first streams of proper gaming revenue in financial year 2022 with full revenue generation in the years following,” Imbert said in Budget 2022.
In Budget 2023, Imbert said: “Following the partial proclamation in June 2021 of sections of the Gambling (Gaming and Betting) Control Act, we took steps to operationalise the Gambling Control Commission.
“We have appointed the Board of Commissioners who have begun their work to recruit staff, procure information technology to support compliance and tax collection, procure and outfit physical accommodation, design business processes, commence specialised training of staff and develop their strategic plan.
“The Commission is also in the process of finalising the draft regulations for the gaming and gambling industry to provide the required oversight and define the policy for the regulation of the gaming and betting sector.
“We will undertake relevant consultations and public sensitisation on these Regulations before enactment. Accordingly, revenue collection by the Gambling Control Commission is expected to commence in 2023.”
Decades in the works, Trinidad and Tobago Revenue Authority (TTRA) has been allocated a smaller sum of $10 million in the 2023 fiscal year.
The TTRA was supposed to be operationalised as expected in fiscal 2022 but Imbert said it will be done in fiscal 2023.
A director general has not yet been identified.
In Budget 2023, Imbert noted that after more than a decade of technical work and stakeholder consultations, the Trinidad and Tobago Revenue Authority (TTRA) was finally established with the passage of the Trinidad and Tobago Revenue Authority Act in 2021.
“The TTRA has begun to build out its governance structure following the partial proclamation of certain sections of the Act in March 2022.
“We appointed a strong Board of Management in June 2022, and we envisage that the TTRA will be operational in 2023 with an improved revenue administration combining the operations of the Inland Revenue and the Custom and Excise Divisions.
“One of the Board’s priorities will be fulfilment of the legislative requirement to submit to the Minister of Finance within six months of appointment a strategic plan and operational plan for moving the TTRA forward.
“The Board has engaged a Strategic Adviser and is working assiduously towards this objective, and I fully expect to have the Strategic and Operational Plans in hand within the stipulated time frame.
“Once received and approved the Board will have a clear roadmap for effecting the long-awaited operationalization of the TTRA.
“Another key initiative of the Board that is ongoing, is the recruitment of a Director General who would lead the merged entity and be integral to the smooth transition to the TTRA. We expect that this key corporate officer will be selected by the end of 2022.
“The Board is also working on establishing the information technology and communication systems that will form the operational platform for the Authority and is working with other State agencies to create the infrastructure and systems needed to maximize the collection of taxes in a fair manner for the benefit of the entire country.”
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Trinidad and Tobago
CHIEF SECRETARY Farley Augustine has said the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) will be relying on public-private partnerships to continue developing the island.
At the THA’s Mandate Monday briefing, Augustine said the administration is constrained by the limited resources from the national budget. Nonetheless, he said the THA will look at creative ways to fulfil its mandate.
The assembly received $2.5 billion for the 2022/2023 fiscal year, 4.3 per cent of the total national budget. It wanted $3.97 billion.
Augustine said the THA will utilise the design-build-finance procurement model.
“Design-build-finance means we are asking contractors to come with their own private money up front, do the work, and the THA takes its time to pay them back – not a case where you come with your money up front and demand your money two months after completion. No, the THA takes a long while, as agreed per contract.
“We appreciate, given the monies we have, we cannot complete all the infrastructural works on time.”
Augustine said tackling coastal erosion is one of the main priorities, including near the Scarborough Secondary School and in Lambeau.
However, he pointed out that a recent estimate by the Caribbean Development Bank projected that work to cost almost $1 billion.
“Where we getting that money from? Therefore, to fund public projects we will be calling on the private sector to front the investment and be paid over a long period of time. That will mean, like with any good hire purchase, the THA will eventually pay more.
“But we are left with no choice, if all we have for development financial for the island is $300 million at best.”
He said the coastal protection projects will include economic stimulators such as boardwalks, to allow residents to earn income
He said the public does not want excuses “when their house washing away, when their village washing away and the place flooding, and I am coming to tell them. ‘This is all the money we have, we cyah do anything else.’ As far as they concerned, there is a THA; we have to find a way to get the work done.”
He explained, “We are not allowed to take loans just so, but we are allowed to approach contractors using this mechanism, which means we could stretch the payments out and pay as we have money.”
He made it clear that these arrangements must be “done properly and not in the ad-hoc, hand-selected way we saw last year in the lead-up to the THA election.”
Augustine has been critical of the previous PNM administration’s handling of road paving and other contracts. He claims some select contractors were given multi-million-dollar contracts without the proper channels being followed.
PNM political leader Ancil Dennis has fired back, accusing Augustine of hypocrisy. He said the PDP administration was doing worse than what it is accusing the PNM of, and a few contractors from central and south Trinidad are being favoured over Tobago contractors. Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley echoed the criticism of Augustine at a PNM meeting in Diego Martin on Friday.
Augustine has denied favouring Trinidadian contractors and claimed Dr Rowley was spewing covert racist rhetoric.
On Monday, Augustine said Tobago’s development was ignored under the PNM, while skyscrapers, waterfronts and parkades were being built in Trinidad.
“We want the island’s development to take on a new look,” he said as he urged Tobagonians to dream big. “Granted, I don’t think Tobago should look like Miami or New York –that’s not the goal.”
He said Tobago’s best asset remains its natural environment.
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Trinidad and Tobago
An online 24/7 portal connecting SMEs with business support products and services is now available.
Finance Minister Colm Imbert gave the details while speaking at the launch of the SME Market Place held at the Hyatt Regency yesterday.
“A single entry portal—SME Market Place—was developed on the Ministry of Finance website which will provide access to information on the SME Market and procedure for listing on the Stock Exchange,” Imbert stated.
Additionally, Imbert said this country looked at Jamaica’s Junior Stock Exchange to develop a SME Mentorship Programme for T&T to further assist businesses.
“Complementary to the tax incentives and to ease the operational burden of listing, the Government in collaboration with the Central Bank and the Stock Exchange has thus designed a similar Mentorship Programme that would provide the necessary support to the SMEs and close the gaps of insufficient documentation, as well as ensure adherence to compliance and corporate governance standards,” Imbert stated.
Even while Government plans to launch a $500 million loan facility for SMEs at the end next month Dr Dorian Noel, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank is advising a comprehensive SME policy/strategy is needed.
Such a measure he said, should provide the best opportunities for sustainable growth; more explicit in the targeting of future growth areas and promotes innovative business rather than replicative ideas.
And more importantly Noel advised, it must treat adequately with gender, recognising that women, especially single women, are increasingly becoming the head of households and the breadwinner.
While applauding the US Embassy and the T&T Entrepreneurship Hub (E-hub) on their launch of the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) programme in 2021, Noel however, said this “somewhat addresses the gender gap in the SME ecosystem a lot more has to be done.”
Speaking at the launch of SME Market Place held at the Hyatt Regency yesterday, Noel noted that SMEs contribution to GDP (the bank’s conservative estimates) roughly 30 per cent and employs about 200,000 people.
However, the are many challenges facing the sector.
According to Noel, SMEs have low levels of technology adoption and innovation, which became quite evident during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This problem needs urgent attention and can be addressed by, perhaps, the provision of grants or tax incentives for digital transitioning of business models and processes,” Noel said.
He also noted SMEs have low levels of internationalisation and participation in global value chains.
“This poor SME performance indicator can be adequately addressed by the provision of suitable funding for market research and access, negotiating SME market access into trade policy and incorporating net spend on SMEs into private and public sector procurement,” Noel outlined.
On how the bank is helping the SME ecosystem Noel explained it is expanding access to financing with the TTSE SME Market, which will provide more durable and cheaper financing for SMEs, especially if the tax incentive for listing on the SME Market is factored into the financing decision of firms.
“A form of financing that is better suited for their long term growth and performance,” Noel added.
Additionally, he said it is expanding business development services with the SME Mentorship Programme. And also the SME Market Place will help enhance the sector.
“We have taken the role in organising an electronic platform, which list the business development services and financial supports available to SMEs and start-ups,” Noel said.
He added the initiative brings all services available to SMEs in a single place, an e-portal that is available 24/7.
“The SME Market Place gives visibility to listing service providers and facilitating connections to them for SMEs. Further, the Market Place reduces the information cost for SMEs, giving them free and readily available access to information to support growth and business performance,” Noel added.
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