Dr Mar­garet Rose

If you fol­lowed the ad­vice in last month’s col­umn and be­gan doc­u­ment­ing and ob­tain­ing writ­ten au­thor­i­ty for ques­tion­able di­rec­tives, you may have al­ready no­ticed the tem­per­a­ture change.

The pres­sure rarely ar­rives as a di­rect in­struc­tion to stop. It ar­rives as dis­ap­point­ment in your in­flex­i­bil­i­ty. A per­for­mance re­view dis­cov­er­ing con­cerns that were nev­er raised be­fore. The meet­ing that hap­pens with­out you. The re­or­gan­i­sa­tion that moves your desk. The pro­mo­tion that pass­es you by in si­lence. The con­tract re­new­al held in abeyance while you lan­guish in lim­bo on a month-to-month ba­sis.

These tac­tics work pre­cise­ly be­cause each one has a plau­si­ble ex­pla­na­tion. That de­ni­a­bil­i­ty is the point. And nam­ing it mat­ters, be­cause what you can­not name, you can­not doc­u­ment. What you do not doc­u­ment, you can­not de­fend against.

Recog­nis­ing re­tal­i­a­tion

Re­tal­i­a­tion in the pro­cure­ment en­vi­ron­ment fol­lows recog­nis­able pat­terns:

* The freeze-out, where you are ex­clud­ed from meet­ings and copied out of email chains;

* The pa­per trail re­ver­sal, where pre­vi­ous­ly ac­cept­able work is sud­den­ly found want­i­ng;

* The per­for­mance piv­ot, where an ap­praisal that was track­ing well dis­cov­ers new de­fi­cien­cies, con­ve­nient­ly timed;

* The whis­per cam­paign, where col­leagues be­gin to ques­tion your “judg­ment”; and

* The de­layed con­se­quence, where noth­ing hap­pens im­me­di­ate­ly, and then, months lat­er, you are passed over for a pro­mo­tion you earned.

These pat­terns have a se­quence. Small, de­ni­able ac­tions come first. Es­ca­la­tion then fol­lows if you do not yield. Recog­nis­ing the ear­ly stage al­lows you to re­spond be­fore the sit­u­a­tion de­te­ri­o­rates.

And the crit­i­cal in­sight is this: doc­u­men­ta­tion of pat­terns, not in­di­vid­ual in­ci­dents, is what trans­forms sus­pi­cion in­to ev­i­dence.

A sin­gle ex­clud­ed meet­ing is an over­sight. Three in a month, con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous­ly record­ed, is a pat­tern any tri­bunal can read.

Your statu­to­ry an­chor: Wield­ing Sec­tion 40

Sec­tion 40 of the PPDP­PA pro­hibits vic­tim­i­sa­tion of any per­son who, act­ing in good faith and on rea­son­able be­lief, has no­ti­fied au­thor­i­ties of a con­tra­ven­tion, done or stat­ed the in­ten­tion of do­ing some­thing to pre­vent a con­tra­ven­tion, or re­fused to do some­thing that would con­tra­vene the Act.

Two fea­tures de­serve par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion. First, the pro­tec­tion trig­gers on stat­ed in­ten­tion, not on­ly on com­plet­ed ac­tion. The mo­ment you state your in­ten­tion to pre­vent a breach, the statu­to­ry pro­tec­tion at­tach­es. Sec­ond, the pro­tec­tion ex­tends to sit­u­a­tions where your em­ploy­er mere­ly be­lieves you will act, even if you have said noth­ing.

The chal­lenge must be named plain­ly:

Sec­tion 40 crim­i­nalis­es vic­tim­i­sa­tion, but pro­vides no rem­e­dy for the vic­tim.

There is no tri­bunal, no pre­scribed com­pen­sa­tion, no fast-track pro­ce­dure. The Whistle­blow­er Pro­tec­tion Act 2024 has been passed but re­mains un­pro­claimed. If fired, or harmed, the NPO has no di­rect le­gal route for com­pen­sa­tion.

How­ev­er, you are not with­out re­course. Emerg­ing Com­mon­wealth (Three Rivers Dis­trict Coun­cil v Gov­er­nor and Com­pa­ny of the Bank of Eng­land [2000] UKHL 33) and lo­cal (CV2007-00185 Row­ley v In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion) prece­dent recog­nise pub­lic law torts in­clud­ing mis­fea­sance in pub­lic of­fice and have award­ed com­pen­sato­ry dam­ages to vic­tims.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, re­cent Privy Coun­cil ju­rispru­dence has been de­vel­op­ing the right to pro­tec­tion of the law as a mul­ti-di­men­sion­al, broad and per­va­sive con­sti­tu­tion­al pre­cept ground­ed in fun­da­men­tal no­tions of jus­tice and the rule of law (Ma­haraj v Prime Min­is­ter (Trinidad and To­ba­go) [2016] UKPC 37; Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons v Seep­er­sad [2021] UKPC 13). These le­gal av­enues how­ev­er re­quire ex­pert nav­i­ga­tion, and usu­al­ly in­volve very cost­ly, lengthy pro­ceed­ings en­gag­ing ap­peals over years. The NPO hop­ing to en­gage these must have pa­tience and re­sources.

The in­formed re­fusal

This is why mas­ter­ing the art of in­formed re­fusal mat­ters. It weaves to­geth­er your pa­per trail (P), ob­tain­ing in­struc­tions in writ­ing (O), and wield­ing sec­tion 40 pro­tec­tion (W) in­to a co­her­ent and dis­ci­plined pro­fes­sion­al prac­tice.

When you in­form a de­ci­sion-mak­er in writ­ing that pro­ceed­ing would breach the Act, you ac­com­plish three things si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly:

* You in­voke Sec­tion 40 pro­tec­tion by stat­ing your in­ten­tion to pre­vent a breach;

* You es­tab­lish the knowl­edge el­e­ment for any po­ten­tial mis­fea­sance claim, be­cause the de­ci­sion-mak­er can no longer cred­i­bly as­sert ig­no­rance; and

* You give the de­ci­sion-mak­er an off-ramp they can re­con­sid­er, seek le­gal ad­vice or choose not to put the in­struc­tion in writ­ing. You have cre­at­ed a mo­ment of in­sti­tu­tion­al choice where com­pli­ance can ac­tu­al­ly be­come the path of least re­sis­tance.

In prac­tice, the in­formed re­fusal dur­ing the course of a pro­cure­ment pro­ceed­ing can take three forms, each es­ca­lat­ing the stakes for all par­ties in­volved.

The first is “con­struc­tive re­fusal” i.e., to ob­tain (O) writ­ten con­fir­ma­tion of the in­struc­tion. This ap­proach cre­ates the record with­out con­fronta­tion. This pro­tects you as NPO and con­sis­tent­ly do­ing this will as­sist in dis­ci­plin­ing oth­ers mak­ing re­quests of you.

The sec­ond is a “de­layed re­fusal” i.e., note of con­cern that names the spe­cif­ic sec­tion of the Act at risk of breach if the in­struc­tion is fol­lowed and then of­fers a com­pli­ant al­ter­na­tive path­way.

The third is a “di­rect writ­ten re­fusal”, nam­ing the spe­cif­ic sec­tion of the Act at risk of breach, cit­ing your re­fusal as jus­ti­fied in or­der to pre­vent a breach of the Act (wield­ing sec­tion 40 (W)) and al­so of­fer­ing a com­pli­ant al­ter­na­tive path­way. The ap­proach you use will de­pend on the cul­ture of your or­gan­i­sa­tion, the lev­el of your so­cial and rep­u­ta­tion­al cap­i­tal with­in that cul­ture and the spe­cif­ic cir­cum­stances of your sit­u­a­tion.

The in­formed re­fusal, prop­er­ly ex­e­cut­ed, rep­re­sents the high­est form of pro­fes­sion­al ser­vice you can of­fer your in­sti­tu­tion. You are pro­tect­ing the ac­count­ing of­fi­cer from ex­po­sure they may not ful­ly ap­pre­ci­ate. You are pro­tect­ing the pub­lic body from li­a­bil­i­ty. You are pro­tect­ing the record. And you are do­ing all of this while of­fer­ing a way for­ward that keeps the pro­cure­ment law­ful and the in­sti­tu­tion safe.

Es­ca­late strate­gi­cal­ly

If the in­formed re­fusal is met with con­tin­ued pres­sure, es­ca­la­tion (E) fol­lows a cal­i­brat­ed lad­der. Start in­ter­nal­ly, raise your con­cern with the ac­count­ing of­fi­cer (AO). If that re­la­tion­ship is com­pro­mised, bring the mat­ter for­mal­ly and in writ­ing to the Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee (PDAC). For com­plex, high-risk pro­cure­ments, re­quest through the PDAC that an in­de­pen­dent pro­bity ad­vi­sor be en­gaged. This brings in­formed ex­ter­nal eyes with­out trig­ger­ing full reg­u­la­to­ry es­ca­la­tion.

If in­ter­nal chan­nels are ex­haust­ed, ex­ter­nal op­tions in­clude a com­plaint to the OPR un­der Sec­tion 41, a re­port to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion or a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act re­quest for all doc­u­ments re­lat­ed to the di­rec­tive in ques­tion. For em­ploy­ment re­tal­i­a­tion specif­i­cal­ly, en­gage your union rep­re­sen­ta­tive, file with the Min­istry of Labour, or pur­sue reme­dies through the In­dus­tri­al Court. Each of these cre­ates in­sti­tu­tion­al wit­ness­es and dis­trib­utes the bur­den of ac­count­abil­i­ty.

Frame every es­ca­la­tion as fi­deli­ty to the law, not de­fi­ance.

You are pro­tect­ing the in­sti­tu­tion, not at­tack­ing it. The lan­guage mat­ters. Your po­si­tion­ing mat­ters. And the pa­per trail (P) you have been build­ing is what makes es­ca­la­tion cred­i­ble rather than re­ac­tive.

The part­ner­ship the law re­quires

But there is more. The NPO and the AO are now bound to­geth­er in a pub­lic law regime at the in­ter­sec­tion of the Ex­che­quer & Au­dit Act, the Com­pa­nies Act and the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment & Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act (PPDP­PA). The regime will not be ef­fec­tive if the NPO and AO act as ad­ver­saries. The AO bears strate­gic re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the pro­cure­ment func­tion and the NPO en­sures op­er­a­tional com­pli­ance. For the sys­tem to work both the NPO and AO must un­der­stand that what is re­quired now is a part­ner­ship based on mu­tu­al re­spect for the in­ter­sect­ing statu­to­ry oblig­a­tions for pub­lic pro­cure­ment and fi­nan­cial man­age­ment ac­count­abil­i­ty.

How­ev­er, here is the deep­er truth this se­ries is build­ing to­ward. The NPO who mas­ters the in­formed re­fusal is not mere­ly sur­viv­ing a dif­fi­cult gov­er­nance en­vi­ron­ment. You are pi­o­neer­ing a new pro­fes­sion­al iden­ti­ty.

Se­nior pro­cure­ment pro­fes­sion­als in 2026 can no longer be per­ceived as they were 20 or even 10 years ago. The PPDP­PA has el­e­vat­ed the NPO to a statu­to­ry guardian of the pub­lic pro­cure­ment func­tion. But statu­to­ry au­thor­i­ty alone does not cre­ate pro­fes­sion­al au­thor­i­ty. That trans­for­ma­tion be­gins with­in.

In­stead of re­sent­ing or avoid­ing an AO, the NPO who de­vel­ops em­pa­thy for the op­er­a­tional pres­sures the AO faces, and who frames com­pli­ance as in­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tion rather than per­son­al ob­struc­tion, trans­forms not on­ly the re­la­tion­ship but the po­si­tion it­self. You move from be­ing per­ceived as an ob­sta­cle to be­ing recog­nised as a trust­ed strate­gic ad­vi­sor.

This re­quires an in­ter­nal shift, from view­ing your­self as a pro­cure­ment man­ag­er ex­e­cut­ing process­es to an or­gan­i­sa­tion­al leader shap­ing in­sti­tu­tion­al in­tegri­ty. How oth­ers re­spond to you will be di­rect­ly shaped by how you see your­self. If you car­ry your­self as some­one ask­ing per­mis­sion to ex­ist, that is how you will be treat­ed. If you car­ry your­self as a pro­fes­sion­al whose role is foun­da­tion­al to in­sti­tu­tion­al gov­er­nance, that au­thor­i­ty will be recog­nised, not al­ways im­me­di­ate­ly, but in­evitably.

The NPO who builds this prac­tice is not mere­ly com­ply­ing with a law. They are build­ing the in­sti­tu­tion­al cul­ture that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s pro­cure­ment regime was de­signed to cre­ate.

Next month, in the fi­nal ar­ti­cle of this se­ries, we com­plete the POW­ER frame­work. We turn to the most un­der­es­ti­mat­ed as­set in any NPO’s ar­se­nal, and the one for which no leg­is­la­tion can pro­vide.

This ar­ti­cle is part of the “Let­ters to the NPO” three-part mi­ni-se­ries in the Nav­i­gat­ing the New Pro­cure­ment Regime col­umn, de­signed to as­sist pol­i­cy­mak­ers, pub­lic ex­ec­u­tive lead­er­ship, and pro­cure­ment pro­fes­sion­als in nav­i­gat­ing com­pli­ance and lit­i­ga­tion risks while trans­form­ing pro­cure­ment gov­er­nance for pub­lic val­ue.

Dr Mar­garet Satya Rose is an at­tor­ney at law, Head of Satya Ju­ris Cham­bers and CEO of PC+. The PC+ Ac­tion Net­work pro­vides pro bono sup­port for Named Pro­cure­ment Of­fi­cers and oth­er Pub­lic Of­fi­cers fac­ing com­pli­ance chal­lenges. Learn more: https://pro­cure­ment­com­pli­an­ce­plus.com