The State's land acquisition process has long been a source of concern due to overpayment for private lands and should be an item of priority for this country’s first ever Board of the Office of Procurement (OPR). The board was installed by President Anthony Carmona on January 12.
This was the advice from past president of the Joint Consultative Council (JCC) and chartered surveyor Afra Raymond.
He believes that the OPR should look into the acquisition process as the new Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property Act comes into operation.
“The OPR needs to develop strong rules within the regulations for this new system to prevent the abuses of the past,” Raymond said as he directed his advice to the OPR chairman, Moonilal Lalchan.
“The OPR now has to move rapidly to establish the regulations and administrative arrangements so that this new system can start functioning.”
Based on the “good collaboration” he had with Lalchan in the past as chairman of the T&T Chamber of Industry and Commerce, Raymond said he expected him to “provide solid leadership of this important new public institution which is responsible for overseeing all transactions in public monies”.
Raymond said dishonest professionals who endorse fraudulent claims should be reported to their professional bodies, their insurers and the police.
“We need to go beyond sound bites and get to taking decisive action on these matters of professional misconduct. Not one of those many scandalous cases of grand corruption could have happened without the connivance of crooked professionals who were active participants in the fraud. We have to rusticate these people from our midst if we are ever to regain control of this situation,” Raymond said.
He suggested that the best impact of the new system will be that the role of Cabinet in the contract award process “be greatly reduced, if not entirely eliminated”.
“That will be a great step forward as the actual responsibility for these spending decisions will be properly concentrated,” Raymond said.
“Finally, I do not expect a recurrence of the Kallco situation, in which a company being sued by the State was awarded a large contract at the same time. Those detrimental silos will now be a thing of the past, as the new system allows for cross-disbarment so that infractions in one state agency can have the effect of disqualifying those contractors or suppliers in all state agencies.”
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley said last Tuesday during the JCC’s breakfast meeting that while these new arrangements should bring about a new way of doing business and such new approaches should see benefits such as better transparency, value for money and a reduction in corruption, “it would be naïve to believe that this law will be the panacea which will solve all our contracting and related problems”.
“In fact it comes with significant risks if there is not a societal abhorrence of the widespread corruption as a way of life and favours as an entitlement,” he added.