The prob­lems with the pub­lic sec­tor pro­cure­ment process are not new. Every gov­ern­ment has been ac­cused of cor­rup­tion in every elec­tion. The cam­paign trail is sign­post­ed with al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion: Project Pride, Pi­ar­co air­port, Ude­cott, EM­BD, To­ba­go fer­ries, high­ways and hous­ing projects.

Iron­i­cal­ly the Cen­tral Ten­ders Board was en­act­ed in 1965 to lim­it il­lic­it pro­cure­ment prac­tices.

In­tegri­ty leg­is­la­tion was en­act­ed to ad­dress the per­cep­tion of cor­rup­tion by re­quir­ing politi­cians, con­nect­ed par­ties, and di­rec­tors of state en­ter­pris­es to de­clare their as­sets be­fore and af­ter en­ter­ing of­fice. Alas and alack, the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion has not been able to ful­fil its ob­jec­tive. Sim­i­lar­ly, Com­mis­sions of In­quiry have been used to defuse pub­lic angst, al­low­ing the pub­lic to vent rather than ad­dress the un­der­ly­ing struc­tur­al prob­lems.

The po­lit­i­cal plat­form is used for pub­lic cen­sure and em­bar­rass­ment, tri­als in the court of pub­lic opin­ion not in the courts where these mat­ters should be de­ter­mined. For ex­am­ple, the civ­il case against se­lect­ed for­mer Ude­cott per­son­nel has dragged on for ten years with ma­jor por­tions of the case be­ing struck out two weeks ago.

There are ex­cep­tions. For­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Bri­an Kuei Tung, busi­ness­man Steve Fer­gu­son and Unit­ed States busi­ness­man Raul Gui­ter­rez were or­dered to pay the Gov­ern­ment US$131.5 mil­lion (ap­prox­i­mate­ly TT$900 mil­lion) over al­leged fraud re­lat­ed to the con­struc­tion of the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. But this case was pur­sued in the US and filed un­der the US’s Rack­e­teer In­flu­enced and Cor­rupt Or­gan­i­sa­tions Act (RI­CO).

Lo­cal­ly, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC, dis­con­tin­ued the Pi­ar­co Three case against the Pan­days, Gal­barans­ingh and John be­cause the ac­cused had a “fair ar­gu­ment” that they faced “pre­sumed, pre­sump­tive, and spe­cif­ic” prej­u­dice in the case.

The Pro­cure­ment Act was meant to cur­tail the op­por­tu­ni­ty for un­just gain from the State’s pro­cure­ment process. In­stead, it has been thrice di­lut­ed. The lat­est di­lu­tion brings more iron­ic twists. Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, nev­er a keen sup­port­er of pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion, re­versed his pre­vi­ous as­sur­ances that the min­is­ter’s pow­er to give ex­emp­tions would be sub­ject to Par­lia­ment’s ap­proval. Last week he pi­lot­ed the amend­ment to widen the pow­er of the min­is­ter out­side par­lia­men­tary ap­proval. Per­haps he changed his mind on “ma­ture re­flec­tion”, though that is de­bat­able.

The Prime Min­is­ter’s po­si­tion is iron­ic, if not more cu­ri­ous. His claim to fame rests on his claim of per­son­al in­tegri­ty. He had been out­spo­ken on pro­cure­ment is­sues, ac­cus­ing the Ude­cott of “bid rig­ging” in 2009 ar­gu­ing that “cor­rup­tion in the PNM was ten times worse than un­der the UNC”. One would have ex­pect­ed that his strong po­si­tion on bid rig­ging would have led him to be a strong pro­po­nent for pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion that ad­dressed the is­sues of which he ap­peared so knowl­edge­able, par­tic­u­lar­ly min­is­te­r­i­al pow­er and in­flu­ence. In­stead, he has twice fa­cil­i­tat­ed the di­lu­tion of the act ex­empt­ing gov­ern­ment and widen­ing the ex­clu­sion ar­eas as well as ex­tend­ing the pow­er of the Min­is­ter by neg­a­tive res­o­lu­tion.

The un­for­tu­nate re­al­i­ty is that politi­cians and po­lit­i­cal par­ties have no cred­i­bil­i­ty on the is­sue of pro­cure­ment. They be­come prin­ci­pled out of of­fice, and ex­pe­di­ent when in of­fice. One must there­fore ask three ques­tions. First, is the act im­prac­ti­cal in its scope and reach? Sec­ond, are the re­al­i­ties of of­fice such that cer­tain in­ter­ests must be re­ward­ed us­ing pub­lic mon­ey? Is this di­lu­tion of the act any­thing more than a chore­o­graphed pub­lic re­la­tions ex­er­cise?