Dr Mar­garet Rose

T&T once stood on the brink of trans­for­ma­tive pro­cure­ment law re­form, pre­pared to lever­age gov­er­nance for na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. Yet to­day, we face frag­ment­ed reg­u­la­tions that threat­en to un­rav­el this vi­sion.

The long march to re­form

It bears re­peat­ing from my ear­li­er ar­ti­cle. Trinidad and To­ba­go’s jour­ney to pro­cure­ment re­form was a painstak­ing labour. Civ­il so­ci­ety, busi­ness, and gov­ern­ment ex­perts craft­ed a vi­sion steeped in cul­tur­al and eco­nom­ic rel­e­vance, be­gin­ning with the Green Pa­per of 2004, evolv­ing through the White Pa­per of 2005, then the re­ject­ed 2006 bill, and cul­mi­nat­ing in the 2015 Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act (the Act). This was not a mere pro­ce­dur­al over­haul; it was a man­i­festo of pub­lic pur­pose.

A par­a­digm shift in pro­cure­ment phi­los­o­phy

From its in­cep­tion, the Act re­ject­ed the com­pli­ance-dri­ven UNCI­TRAL Mod­el Law, pro­mot­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tions and mul­ti­lat­er­al lend­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions as a “gold stan­dard” for pro­cure­ment law re­form and ax­iomat­ic of “good gov­er­nance.” How­ev­er, guid­ed by Caribbean in­tel­lec­tu­als such as Williams, Best, and Gir­van, we recognsed its deep­er im­pli­ca­tions. Far from be­ing neu­tral, proces­su­al or pure­ly tech­ni­cal, this mod­el of­ten un­der­mines de­vel­op­ment in less­er in­dus­tri­alised economies by pri­ori­tis­ing uni­for­mi­ty over lo­cal needs. Hon­or Brabazon (2016) and her col­leagues term this form of law “ne­olib­er­al le­gal­i­ty,” a project of re­order­ing the state by po­si­tion­ing im­per­son­al mar­ket forces as the op­ti­mal ar­biters of what should be pro­duced and con­sumed in an econ­o­my. Put more sim­ply, the Mod­el Law favours mar­ket ac­cess over po­lit­i­cal au­ton­o­my, re­duc­ing pro­cure­ment gov­er­nance to a set of rules fo­cused on fa­cil­i­tat­ing in­ter­na­tion­al trade rather than em­pow­er­ing gov­ern­ments to dri­ve so­cial and eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion.

Our re­sponse? We re­ject­ed that mod­el, orig­i­nal­ly cod­i­fied in the 2006 Bill, in favour of some­thing bold and home­grown—the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act (the Act), passed in 2015.

The 2015 Act was rev­o­lu­tion­ary be­cause it moved away from rigid rules-based sys­tems to­ward some­thing more strate­gic—a val­ues-based ap­proach that pri­ori­tised out­comes over mere com­pli­ance.

We un­der­stood the as­sign­ment. Pub­lic pro­cure­ment was not sim­ply about buy­ing goods and ser­vices. It was about shap­ing our fu­ture through sus­tain­able pro­cure­ment, lo­cal in­dus­try de­vel­op­ment, and so­cial eq­ui­ty. Pub­lic pur­chasers were giv­en dis­cre­tion to pur­sue out­comes aligned with na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties—whether en­vi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty or lo­cal eco­nom­ic em­pow­er­ment.

But fast for­ward to 2021, and things take an un­ex­pect­ed turn.

A be­tray­al of in­tent

In­stead of build­ing on this in­no­v­a­tive foun­da­tion, new reg­u­la­tions in­tro­duced in 2021 have un­der­mined key prin­ci­ples of the Act. Take just two ex­am­ples:

* Sec­tion 26(1) of the Act grants sup­pli­ers a choice to reg­is­ter in the Pro­cure­ment De­pos­i­to­ry—af­firm­ing a fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple of ac­ces­si­ble pub­lic pro­cure­ment. Yet, reg­u­la­tions 3(1) and 8 of the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment (Pre-Qual­i­fi­ca­tion and Pre-Se­lec­tion) Reg­u­la­tions 2021, un­der­mine this free­dom by mak­ing reg­is­tra­tion manda­to­ry. This shift from vol­un­tary to com­pul­so­ry reg­is­tra­tion re­stricts ac­cess, con­tra­dict­ing the Act’s in­clu­sive in­tent.

* Then there is the In­el­i­gi­bil­i­ty Pro­ceed­ing: Sec­tions 59(7) and 59(8) of the Act man­date a strict 10-year de­bar­ment for sup­pli­ers found guilty of cor­rupt or fraud­u­lent prac­tices—a de­ci­sive stance against cor­rup­tion. How­ev­er, reg­u­la­tions 3(7) and 7 of the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment (In­el­i­gi­bil­i­ty Pro­ceed­ings) Reg­u­la­tions 2021 soft­en this man­date, al­low­ing “Let­ters of Rep­ri­mand” as an al­ter­na­tive to de­bar­ment. By soft­en­ing the Act’s firm stance, these reg­u­la­tions risk em­bold­en­ing bad ac­tors rather than de­ter­ring them.

These con­tra­dic­tions are non-triv­ial—they strike at the heart of what makes good pub­lic pro­cure­ment law ef­fec­tive: co­her­ence be­tween its vi­sion and its im­ple­men­ta­tion.

Why this mat­ters

Why should these le­gal con­tra­dic­tions mat­ter to the av­er­age cit­i­zen? Be­cause pub­lic pro­cure­ment is more than just buy­ing goods and ser­vices—it is be­yond trans­ac­tion­al. It is our na­tion’s in­vest­ment in it­self. When laws be­come in­co­her­ent—when sub­sidiary rules con­tra­dict pri­ma­ry leg­isla­tive pur­pose—not on­ly are we ar­guably en­gaged in the realm of le­gal im­pos­si­bil­i­ty—we risk com­pro­mis­ing our abil­i­ty to build that fu­ture ef­fec­tive­ly.

Con­sid­er by way of ex­am­ple, re­cent glob­al de­vel­op­ments. The US Pres­i­dent Elect Trump, has al­ready sig­nalled an ag­gres­sive and bold stance on for­eign im­ports, propos­ing tar­iffs from 20 per cent to 100 per cent in or­der to pri­ori­tise do­mes­tic pro­duc­tion. Re­gard­less of whether we per­ceive this pol­i­cy as good or bad, whether we love or hate Trump, what it high­lights is the courage to in­ter­ro­gate the un­der­ly­ing mar­ket norms that we have grown to pas­sive­ly ac­cept.

For Trinidad and To­ba­go, this type of in­ter­ro­ga­tion is not just an op­tion, it is es­sen­tial for our long-term eco­nom­ic re­silience in an in­creas­ing­ly volatile glob­al econ­o­my. With for­eign ex­change short­ages lim­it­ing growth prospects, we must lever­age every tool, in­clud­ing non-tar­iff bar­ri­ers to trade such as pub­lic pro­cure­ment, to bol­ster lo­cal in­dus­tries and re­duce re­liance on im­ports. Pro­cure­ment can serve as a strate­gic lever, nur­tur­ing do­mes­tic sup­ply chains and con­serv­ing for­eign cur­ren­cy.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, gov­ern­ment pro­cure­ment fos­ters lo­cal ex­per­tise and ca­pac­i­ty. Do­mes­tic busi­ness­es can grow, even­tu­al­ly com­pet­ing in­ter­na­tion­al­ly and gen­er­at­ing for­eign ex­change. A co­her­ent pro­cure­ment frame­work could cre­ate a vir­tu­ous cy­cle of in­vest­ment and skill de­vel­op­ment, pro­gres­sive­ly re­duc­ing for­eign cur­ren­cy de­pen­den­cy.

Chart­ing a co­her­ent path for­ward

So where do we go from here?

This drift back to­ward com­pli­ance-fo­cused rigid­i­ty while be­ing le­nient on cor­rup­tion in pub­lic pro­cure­ment is no ac­ci­dent. In the last 40 years, what is good pub­lic pro­cure­ment law has been de­ter­mined out­side of our shores. The dis­course is dri­ven by ex­ter­nal in­flu­ences: box-tick­ing con­sul­tants steeped in con­ven­tion­al pro­cure­ment prac­tices, ap­par­ent­ly ig­no­rant of the role of multi­na­tion­al cor­po­rate lob­by­ists push­ing for soft­er de­bar­ment penal­ties, and cor­po­rate in­ter­ests that favour the pre­dictabil­i­ty of mar­kets over prin­ci­ples of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. Is this tru­ly what we want? Do we want our pro­cure­ment gov­er­nance sys­tem dic­tat­ed by vest­ed in­ter­ests that erode na­tion­al au­ton­o­my and sti­fle lo­cal in­no­va­tion?

For pol­i­cy­mak­ers, the mes­sage is clear: we can­not af­ford a pro­cure­ment gov­er­nance frame­work that works against our na­tion­al goals and our au­ton­o­my to set them. A trans­par­ent re­view of these reg­u­la­tions, in­volv­ing both le­gal ex­perts and the civ­il so­ci­ety that helped shape this leg­is­la­tion, is es­sen­tial to align our laws with our as­pi­ra­tions for sus­tain­able lo­cal em­pow­er­ment.

The an­swer lies not in ex­empt­ing large swathes of pub­lic sec­tor pro­cure­ment ac­tiv­i­ty from the leg­isla­tive regime, but in hold­ing true to the ob­jects of the Act (sec­tion 5) and craft­ing rules and guide­lines that pro­mote reg­u­la­to­ry co­her­ence.

Fur­ther, we must cul­ti­vate a deep­er un­der­stand­ing of pub­lic pro­cure­ment’s role as a pil­lar of na­tion­al pol­i­cy. Pol­i­cy­mak­ers, pro­cure­ment of­fi­cials, sup­pli­ers, and stake­hold­ers alike must shift per­spec­tive be­yond trans­ac­tion­al com­pli­ance and to­ward pub­lic pur­pose. We must re­in­force the core tenets of good pub­lic pro­cure­ment—not mere ad­her­ence to ex­ter­nal­ly-gen­er­at­ed rules but strate­gic think­ing that yields tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

We are still in the ear­ly stages of de­vel­op­ing this law. The ques­tion re­mains: will we al­low our pro­cure­ment gov­er­nance to strug­gle for co­her­ence, or will we take de­ci­sive ac­tion to re­store its trans­for­ma­tive po­ten­tial by re­align­ing vi­sion and prax­is?

Dr Mar­garet Satya Rose, is se­nior part­ner and head of the Gov­er­nance, Pro­cure­ment & Fi­nan­cial Crime (GPFC) Prac­tice at Lex Caribbean, At­tor­neys at Law and di­rec­tor of Pro­cure­ment Com­pli­ance Plus, a con­sult­ing firm lever­ag­ing tech­nol­o­gy and in­no­va­tion for bet­ter pro­cure­ment out­comes. Rose holds an LLB (Hons), an LLM in Cor­po­rate Com­mer­cial Law from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and a Doc­tor­ate in Pol­i­cy Re­search and Prac­tice with a spe­cial­ism in pub­lic pro­cure­ment law and pol­i­cy from the In­sti­tute for Pol­i­cy Re­search, Uni­ver­si­ty of Bath. Dr Rose can be con­tact­ed at mar­garet.rose@tt.lex­caribbean.com