I wish to now elaborate more on the electronic portal that is the Bahamian government’s e-procurement supplier registry.

This was launched by the Ministry of Finance on December 19, 2017, with the then-deputy prime minister and minister of finance, K Peter Turnquest, saying: “This government administration is keeping its promise to bring greater accountability, transparency and modernity to the government by changing how persons and businesses bid for government purchasing opportunities, otherwise known as procurement.

“Procurement will move from a very paper-based, time-consuming process to an online automated system that utilises standardised forms with clearly-defined evaluation criteria. Interested bidders can prepare and submit documents through the online portal, which will be known as the e-tendering and supplier register system.

“More importantly, these initiatives will leap the country forward in terms of having a transparent and accountable use of public resources that will ultimately expand opportunities for a greater number of Bahamian businesses and save taxpayers some money in the process.”

Mr Turnquest said the government is a major procurer of goods, works and services, spending in excess of $1.475bn to deliver public services. “This underscores the importance of having in place effective, fair and efficient procurement arrangements to ensure that the best value is obtained for the monies being spent,” he added.

Again, on November 29, 2018, while opening the Ministry of Finance’s e-procurement reform seminar, which was held at the Pelican Bay Resort in Freeport, as well as officially launching the e-procurement and supplier registry system in Grand Bahama, the former deputy prime minister said: “The whole idea of the reform is to make the process of government procurement transparent, and to ensure that there is fairness across the system so that everyone has an opportunity.

“I know that for most businesses in The Bahamas that I have come across, one of the things that they have been concerned about is fairness and access,” he added. “We know how it worked in the past, where if your party is in power you get the contracts, and when your party is not in power, you’re out of luck.

“This system seeks to try to create some balance, some equity and fairness across the system, so that we can take out these kinds of bias. If we allow the system to work the way it has been designed to work, it is going to create equity and it will result in savings and GDP business growth for all Bahamians.”

More recently, Elsworth Johnson, minister of financial services, trade and industry and Immigration, said on March 15, 2021, while closing the debate on the Public Procurement Bill: “For about five years or more persons have been discussing the necessity of having an electronic process; how persons would tender, how they would appeal as Killarney said, and how persons can be treated justly.”

But it was just last month that his ministry advised the Department of Immigration to engage a vendor to provide meals for detainees of the Detention Centre. The electronic process and print media were not used to invite bids for this service, as prescribed by the government’s tender process for any contract in excess of $50,000.

In 2018, the Committee of Experts of the Follow-Up Mechanism on the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption (MESICIC), of which The Bahamas has been a signatory since 1998, visited this nation and interviewed myself and other officials from the Ministry of Finance to follow up on the public procurement reform process. This was part of a series of visits, and this one was considered as round five.

In their final report dated September 18, 2018, MESICIC made recommendations that the government should consider enacting a new comprehensive legal and regulatory framework which encompasses all the branches and agencies of the state applicable to the public procurement of goods, works and services.

It added that this should be done in a way that embodies the principles of openness, equity and efficiency as outlined in the Convention, and called for the creation of a centralised registry of contractors of works, goods or services.

MESICIC added that this should be mandatory for all state bodies and dependencies, while registration was also to include a list of sanctioned contractors in order to foster the principles of openness, equity and efficiency provided for in the convention.

It has been two years and seven months since the e-procurement supplier registry’s initial launch, and two years since all government ministries, agencies and state-owned enterprises were mandated to use the portal for all procurements.

To date there are 2,266 vendors who have registered on the system. However, 208 of them will not receive e-mail notices of the opportunities available to them because, since the departure of the international consultant and procurement officer at the Ministry of Finance in March this year, the ministry has lacked the ability to approve these vendors on the system electronically, causing them a grave inconvenience. The same dilemma exists for new buyers and those sending in requests for technical assistance via e-mail. Approximately four months have passed now but the Ministry of Finance also has yet to hire an IT systems manager to address these situations and more.

The following is a list of ministries, agencies, departments and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that have not registered on the e-procurement supplier registry to date:

• Ministry of Financial Services, Trade and Industry and Immigration

• Ministry of Foreign Affairs

• Office of the Governor-General

• Ministry of Education

• Ministry of National Security

• Office of the Attorney General & Ministry of Legal Affairs

• Office of the Prime Minister

• Ministry of Public Service and National Insurance

• Ministry of Social Services & Urban Development

• Ministry of Tourism and Aviation

• Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture

• Department of Archives

• Business Licence - Valuation Unit

• Department of Cooperatives Development

• Court of Appeal

• Department of Education

• Fire Services

• Forestry Unit

• HIV-AIDS Centre

• Department of Housing

• Department of Immigration

• Internal Audit Office

• Department of Labour

• Department of Meteorology

• National Anti-Drug Secretariat

• National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA)

• Port Department

• Post Office Department

• Department of Public Health

• Department of Public Prosecutions

• Registrar General’s Department

• Department of Road Traffic

• Royal Bahamas Police Force

• Royal Bahamas Police Force - Grand Bahama

• Department of Social Services,

•Department of Statistics (Nassau)

• Supreme Court

• Bahamas Power & Light (BPL)

• Bahamas Investment Authority

• Bahamas Maritime Authority

• Bahamas Trade Commission

• Bahamasair

• Bank of The Bahamas

• Central Bank of The Bahamas

• Compliance Commission

• Data Protection Commissioner

• Hotel Corporation of The Bahamas

• Nassau Flight Services

• Securities Commission of The Bahamas

• University of The Bahamas

• Utilities Regulations & Competition Authority (URCA)

It is my understanding that the Ministry of Finance is aggressively attempting to have all of these departments on the system by September. Instead of trying to meet an unrealistic deadline to just populate the supplier registry, it needs to take a more strategic approach to yield the best results by first concentrating on the agencies that have a larger capital works and services budget as these are high in value and should be placing their request for bids on the portal. This would enhance transparency, ensure value for money and create an equal opportunity for vendors in their respective industries. These agencies are:

• Department of Public Works

• The Public Hospitals Authority

• Bahamas Power & Light

• Department of Education

• Water and Sewage Corporation

• Royal Bahamas Police Force

• Royal Bahamas Defence Force

To support these large procurer they ought to ensure the Tenders Board’s governance module is installed, and that the Board gets trained in order to make the necessary approvals or recommendations. If one was to go to suppliers.gov.bs and search “opportunities”, you would find that out of the 36 agencies that are registered on the system there are only four that are actively using it for most of their procurements. They are:

• The National Insurance Board

• Ministry of Agriculture and Marine Resources

• Bahamas Department of Correctional Services

• Royal Bahamas Defence Force

This lacklustre approach to using the e-procurement supplier registry is, I suspect, being driven by members of the political directorate, especially when it comes to capital projects, and also a lack of oversight by the Ministry of Finance which has yet to place a significant number of notices on the portal.

Rival Caribbean nations such as Jamaica (www.gojep.gov.jm), the Cayman Islands (www.cayman.bonfirehub.com), and Trinidad & Tobago (www.ttconnect.g) have e-procurement systems as well, and list a large variety of bids for goods, works and services. This is different from what is seen on The Bahamas’ suppliers.gov.bs, as our bid requests are primarily for goods.

As we are now in an election period, there are almost daily announcements by the Government on project contract awards - almost none of which are reaching the portal. The former deputy prime minister and minister of finance meant well when he launched the e-procurement supplier registry. I wonder what he would say now as there is surely a lack of transparency in public procurement at the moment.

The Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) economic and financial analysis conducted on The Bahamas’ procurement system reported that the implementation of e-procurement is going to provide more transparency and more competition in the different procurement processes, which will generate savings in the acquisition of goods and services. Let us hope that the Public Procurement Act will come into force soon so we can realise these improvements.

NB: Daniel Ferguson, a retired chief petty officer with the Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF), is a former procurement officer in the Ministry Health and Ministry of Finance, and former component co-ordinator for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) sponsored public financial management reform project, in particular the public procurement reform. He led the drafting team for the development of the Public Procurement Bill 2021, and public procurement regulations. He is a chartered member of the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply, with over 25 years of experience in public procurement.