Editorial | Building confidence in procurement regime

There won’t be open pushback to Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ insistence last week that taxpayers must get value for public infrastructure projects and his admonition of the National Works Agency (NWA) for not doing enough to protect the public interest.

For, though hard to prove, it is a widely known secret, not just about Jamaica, that public works offer among the easiest and most lucrative opportunities for graft and kickbacks. Contracts are, at times, awarded based not on competence and price, but a contractor’s affiliation and/or his ability to reflow money to organisations and individuals. The upshot: cost overruns and shoddy work, for which the public pays again.

In some cases, it may indeed be the result of less-than-robust oversight, as Mr Holness suggested was the case with the NWA when he complained of contractors “who don’t finish (the job), don’t complete it on time, but then come back into the system”.

While we wait for his proposed new model for the NWA, we agree with the prime minister that the Government’s new procurement policy officer and the Public Procurement Commission, which vets eligible bidders for state contracts, must write rules that insist upon good behaviour, or exclude errant contractors. However, fixing the problem demands a deeper commitment to efficiency and the fight against corruption from a broad range of institutions, not least the political executive.

Irony of chiding

Indeed, there was irony in Mr Holness’ public chiding of the NWA in the presence of its CEO, Everton Hunter. Recall the scandal of the more than J$600-million pre-election bush-clearing and drain-cleaning project in 2016.

As the former contractor general, Dirk Harrison, discovered during his investigation, it was the Cabinet, over which Mr Holness presides, that decided who got contracts for what region, while some ministers became involved in indentifying liaison officers in particular regions.

In testimony during the investigation, Mr Hunter said: “The Cabinet decision instructed me to enter contracts with a select group of contractors to do work in a specified amount and in specified locations. And in full faithfulness of my obligation as an employee of the Government of Jamaica, I followed through forthwith and executed the contracts, knowing full well that I was clothed with the (authority of) the Cabinet so do to.”

Draw the red line

Such behaviour, of course, isn’t a vice only of the current administration. Hopefully, though, the 2016 incident or any others since then were aberrations under which Mr Holness has drawn a red line, thus limiting the Cabinet’s executive authority over contracts to their ratification after robust analyses by the contracting departments and review agencies.

These arrangements work best when there is trust, the possibility for which is greater in an environment of transparency and frank communication. It is a lesson we commend to the Integrity Commission, which, as the single anti-corruption agency, now has responsibility for the monitoring and, where required, investigation of government contracts to ensure that they meet procurement rules and anti-corruption laws.

The public knows little and cares less about the Integrity Commission and its director of investigations, David Grey, whose direct responsibility it is to ferret out state corruption. At the same time, the commissioners’ stingy, pompously abstruse and pedantic approach to communicating with the public doesn’t inspire confidence.

Indeed, the mistrust was evident in the public’s perception of what lay behind the commission’s clearly testy relationship with Mr Harrison, who, at the expiry of the independent office of contractor general, became the commission’s acting director of prosecutions. Mr Harrison operated for more than a year, apparently without formal instrument of appointment, and didn’t, or wasn’t able to, initiate a single prosecution before he pointedly announced last week that he was leaving the job with a “clear conscience”. If it intends to build trust, the commission has to take the public into its confidence.

Similarly, Prime Minister Holness, or Finance Minister Nigel Clarke, in whose portfolio they reside, should ensure that there is greater openness and public engagement by the procurement policy officer, the procurement commission and the procurement review board.