By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A past Bahamian Contractors Association (BCA) chief yesterday voiced optimism the government’s procurement reforms will deliver taxpayer value, adding: “We don’t have the luxury of wasting money.”

Stephen Wrinkle told Tribune Business he “endorsed” the Minnis administration’s efforts to make the bidding on, and awarding of, government contracts a more transparent and open process but said properly executing the Public Procurement Bill will be key.

Agreeing that it was critical that Bahamians receive “value for money” for the $1.4bn awarded in public sector contracts annually, a sum equivalent to 13 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), Mr Wrinkle said holding contractors accountable would still be difficult given that the Construction Contractors Act being brought into effect.

He argued that the failure to implement the Act’s licensing and certification regime means the government still cannot determine which contractors are qualified and capable of performing certain construction jobs, thereby exposing taxpayers to shoddy workmanship, over-payments and wastage of increasingly scarce public funds post-COVID-19.

“Hopefully it brings some sense of accountability to the procurement process and accountability for the expenditure of public funds,” Mr Wrinkle said, after the Public Procurement Bill had its second reading in the House of Assembly on Monday.

“The public needs to get value for its money. They’re over-burdened with taxes and red tape. The least they should get is accountability for the use of their funds. There appears to be hundreds of millions of dollars, an insurmountable sum of money, that has not been accounted for over the years. It’s been going on for 50 years.”

Mr Wrinkle, a past BCA president, said the Association and its members would “assist in any way possible” to ensure the government meets its objectives in passing the Public Procurement Bill into law. “That’s a good start,” he told Tribune Business. “Hopefully it will be properly implemented to the benefit of the taxpayer.

“We don’t have the luxury of wasting money in this country. Those years are gone. We’ve got to penny pinch as a way back to financial stability. We’re in dire straits, and there’s no wiggle room.... Agencies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) are going to start demanding more accountability because we’re in deeper and deeper financial straits.

“If we borrow more money, they’re going to tighten the screws for oversight and accountability. If we don’t pass this legislation and implement it properly we run the risk of the international agencies coming in and doing it for us, like they did with Greece,” Mr Wrinkle continued.

“It behooves the Government that if they want to remain captain of their own ship, they have to take responsibility for their own ship. We cannot borrow our way to heaven. It’s going to jump up and bite us one day.”

Mr Wrinkle, though, argued that passing of the Public Procurement Bill should go hand-in-hand with implementation of the Construction Contractors Act. He said there were numerous examples of government buildings that had taken years to construct, going through multiple contractors and massive cost overruns that all undermine taxpayer value for money.

“It’s important we have accountability, productivity and quality workmanship in these public buildings,” Mr Wrinkle added. “I think there’s a big gap between perceived qualifications and actual qualifications a contractor may have. There’s a very large jump when you go from a single family home to a commercial structure. I continue to see poor workmanship and lack of accountability on those government contracts for big buildings.

“We need to look at the overall construction industry. We have never actually implemented the Construction Contractors Act and the licensing regime for building trades and contractors. The question of accountability is left in the eye of the beholder. How can you be accountable if you can’t have an accountable contractor?

“The overriding factor would be without having the Construction Contractors Act in place, it’s going to be difficult to navigate the construction industry for qualified contractors. What do they base their qualifications for qualified contractors on? It’s fine to talk about public disclosure on procurement......”

Dr Hubert Minnis, speaking on the Public Procurement Bill during its second reading in the House of Assembly, said: “Procurement systems clearly have a significant impact on the efficiency of the use of public funds and, more generally, on public confidence in government and on good governance.

““In the local context, the sheer importance of these activities is evidenced by the central government’s $1.4bn in public procurement spending, which approximates nearly 13 percent of the country’s GDP.

“My government is all about establishing an efficient procurement system; attaining the best value for money spent on behalf of Bahamians; ensuring public access to information on government contracts; and providing fair opportunities for suppliers to compete for government contracts.”

Dr Minnis acknowledged that government procurement processes have traditionally been plagued by problems associated with “the lack of transparency and efficient market competition”, together with the “absence of a legal framework that promotes high standards in line with international best practices”.

He added that there has also been a frequent “lack of reconciliation between budget amounts committed and procurement requisitions”, and an over-reliance on manual processes, with reform proving an “elusive” goal across successive administrations.

“The Public Procurement Bill we have before us today is designed to promote economy and efficiency in the use of public funds, to conduct procurement in a fair and transparent manner, and to support an increase in the number of small Bahamian-owned businesses involved in the public procurement space,” Dr Minnis said.