Mick­ela Pan­day

Pub­lic pro­cure­ment is where pub­lic mon­ey meets pri­vate in­ter­est. It de­cides who gets con­tracts, who gets op­por­tu­ni­ties, who ben­e­fits from State land and whether cit­i­zens re­ceive val­ue for mon­ey or an­oth­er ex­pen­sive promise wrapped in se­cre­cy.

That is why the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion mat­ters.

The OPR was not cre­at­ed for one gov­ern­ment, one par­ty or one scan­dal. It was cre­at­ed be­cause Trinidad and To­ba­go has lived through too many years of al­le­ga­tions about waste, cor­rup­tion, in­flat­ed costs, weak over­sight, state en­ter­prise mis­man­age­ment and po­lit­i­cal favouritism. Not every al­le­ga­tion has been proven. Some were in­ves­ti­gat­ed, some de­nied, and some fad­ed with­out sat­is­fac­to­ry an­swers. But the dam­age to pub­lic con­fi­dence was re­al.

Cit­i­zens need­ed more than speech­es. They need­ed a sys­tem.

The Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act was as­sent­ed to in Jan­u­ary 2015. It was par­tial­ly pro­claimed that year, al­low­ing for the es­tab­lish­ment of the OPR, the ap­point­ment of its board, cer­tain key func­tions to be­gin, and reg­u­la­tions to be draft­ed. But the Act was not ful­ly pro­claimed un­til April 26, 2023, af­ter years of amend­ments, reg­u­la­tions and prepa­ra­tion.

That his­to­ry is im­por­tant. Trinidad and To­ba­go wait­ed eight years for the mod­ern pro­cure­ment regime to be­come ful­ly op­er­a­tional.

The pur­pose of the OPR is not to frus­trate de­vel­op­ment. It is to pro­tect the pub­lic in­ter­est. The law speaks to ac­count­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy, in­tegri­ty and val­ue for mon­ey. Those are not po­lit­i­cal slo­gans. They are the min­i­mum stan­dards cit­i­zens should ex­pect when­ev­er pub­lic mon­ey, pub­lic prop­er­ty or pub­lic au­thor­i­ty is be­ing used.

That is why the cur­rent mat­ters in­volv­ing the HDC and Land­mark­TT must be treat­ed se­ri­ous­ly.

The OPR re­port­ed­ly di­rect­ed the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion to pause the award of TT$3.4 bil­lion in hous­ing con­tracts to 11 com­pa­nies pend­ing re­view. That does not prove wrong­do­ing. It proves the sys­tem is be­ing test­ed. A reg­u­la­tor ask­ing ques­tions should not be treat­ed as an at­tack. It should be treat­ed as the law do­ing what the pub­lic was told it was de­signed to do.

Land­mark­TT rais­es equal­ly se­ri­ous con­cerns be­cause it in­volves hous­ing de­vel­op­ment, pub­lic-pri­vate arrange­ments and State land. Re­ports have re­ferred to OPR scruti­ny of the $100 mil­lion Al­lam­by Res­i­den­tial De­vel­op­ment project, ques­tions around se­lec­tive ten­der­ing and al­le­ga­tions about the board’s com­po­si­tion and con­nec­tions to per­sons linked to the min­is­ter. Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein has de­fend­ed Land­mark­TT, say­ing no tax­pay­er mon­ey is be­ing spent, no State land is be­ing trans­ferred and de­vel­op­ers are fund­ing the projects.

Those are rel­e­vant an­swers, but they do not end the pub­lic’s right to know more.

If State land is be­ing used, made avail­able, lever­aged or de­vel­oped through a State com­pa­ny, cit­i­zens are en­ti­tled to un­der­stand the terms. Say­ing the ti­tle was not trans­ferred may an­swer one al­le­ga­tion. It does not an­swer im­por­tant ques­tions about process, ac­cess, fair­ness, val­ue, over­sight and pub­lic ben­e­fit. Sim­i­lar­ly, al­le­ga­tions about board com­po­si­tion or con­nec­tions do not prove wrong­do­ing by them­selves. But they make trans­paren­cy more ur­gent, not less.

More trou­bling is the tone now en­ter­ing the pub­lic con­ver­sa­tion. Min­is­ter Ho­sein re­port­ed­ly said it was “pass­ing strange” that the OPR board and reg­u­la­tor had no is­sues with se­lec­tive ten­der­ing un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion, and that “very soon” in­for­ma­tion would come to light and the OPR board and reg­u­la­tor would have “many ques­tions to an­swer.”

That kind of lan­guage is dan­ger­ous.

A min­is­ter has every right to de­fend gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy. He may cor­rect mis­in­for­ma­tion. He may pro­vide facts. He may point to past con­cerns if he be­lieves there was in­con­sis­ten­cy. But when an in­de­pen­dent reg­u­la­tor is ex­am­in­ing mat­ters in­volv­ing a State com­pa­ny, min­is­te­r­i­al lan­guage must be mea­sured. It must not ap­pear to pres­sure, in­tim­i­date or po­lit­i­cal­ly con­di­tion the work of the OPR.

If the min­is­ter has ev­i­dence that ear­li­er com­plaints were ig­nored, then place that ev­i­dence be­fore the ap­pro­pri­ate au­thor­i­ties. But no min­is­ter should ap­pear to warn a reg­u­la­tor that it will have “many ques­tions to an­swer” while that reg­u­la­tor is do­ing its work.

The OPR is not an­ti-gov­ern­ment. It is an­ti-se­cre­cy.

That prin­ci­ple ap­plies no mat­ter who is in of­fice. It mat­tered dur­ing the years when cit­i­zens heard re­peat­ed al­le­ga­tions about waste, cor­rup­tion, in­flat­ed con­tracts and mis­man­age­ment. It mat­ters now, when new hous­ing en­ti­ties, pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships and State land arrange­ments are be­ing pro­mot­ed as so­lu­tions. The pub­lic can­not be asked to trust the same po­lit­i­cal sys­tem that made in­de­pen­dent over­sight nec­es­sary in the first place.

De­vel­op­ment is im­por­tant. Trinidad and To­ba­go needs hous­es, jobs and in­vest­ment. But speed can­not re­place scruti­ny. State land can­not be treat­ed as if it be­longs to whichev­er min­is­ter, board or ad­min­is­tra­tion is tem­porar­i­ly in charge.

The an­swer to sus­pi­cion is dis­clo­sure. Pub­lish what can be pub­lished. Ex­plain the pro­cure­ment method. Ex­plain the cri­te­ria. Ex­plain the safe­guards. Ex­plain how cit­i­zens ben­e­fit. If le­gal lim­its pre­vent full dis­clo­sure, say so clear­ly and pro­vide as much in­for­ma­tion as the law al­lows.

Trinidad and To­ba­go has a func­tion­ing pro­cure­ment watch­dog. It must not be weak­ened by po­lit­i­cal pres­sure, se­lec­tive out­rage or min­is­te­r­i­al im­pa­tience.

The watch­dog be­longs to the pub­lic. Those in pow­er must let it work.

Mick­ela Pan­day is the Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front and At­tor­ney at Law