By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas is “struggling with the execution” of anti-corruption safeguards, governance reformers are warning, with accountability and transparency “aspirational” rather than real concepts.

Matt Aubry, the Organisation for Responsible Governance’s (ORG) principal, told Tribune Business in a recent interview that The Bahamas lacks an “integrated anti-corruption” strategy that pulls all such legislative and regulatory reforms together in a co-ordinated package capable of combating graft.

Chester Cooper, deputy prime minister and minister of tourism, investments and aviation, and some of his Cabinet colleagues have foreshadowed changes to the Public Disclosure Act but this law - which focuses on declarations of wealth, income and assets by ministers, MPs and top civil servants - is viewed by Mr Aubry as not wide enough to capture the low level, every day corruption that most Bahamians have to deal with.

Speaking after the US government, in its recent International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, urged The Bahamas to move forward with long-planned governance reforms, the ORG executive said: “Accountability and transparency continue to be aspirational terms. They have to be actual terms, and it’s in the execution where we’re struggling.

“We have the language out, but have to understand what it means for the day-to-day person, small business owner or person struggling with the delivery of public services. We’ve made advances, but it’s important to make sure they are enhanced and understood, and it has to be a whole society effort.

“It’s not just the Government changing and reforming, and putting practices in place for good governance, but citizens finding a way to participate and businesses being able to use publicly-available information to develop strategies and grow. This is a continuum that we’ve started, and it doesn’t necessarily help if we don’t see it all the way through.”

The Davis administration had promised to pass a comprehensive package of anti-corruption legislation during its first 100 days in office, including the Integrity Commission and Ombudsman Bills that stalled under its predecessor, but that period has past with little visible progress made.

In addition to Mr Cooper, Michael Halkitis, minister of economic affairs, and Ryan Pinder, the attorney general, have also publicly referred to reforming the Public Disclosure Act. Mr Aubry said campaigners were benchmarking this Act, and determining whether it could be extended to cover other corruption-related issues, but he indicated the early results were not promising on this.

Referring to the Integrity Commission Bill, which would create a politically-independent body to receive and investigate corruption allegations, the ORG chief said: “From what I understand that Bill did not make the legislative agenda.

“When you think about establishment of an independent agency that receives and vets any allegations of corruption, and is charged with identifying opportunities across government where we can improve corruption perceptions or reduce instances of corruption through technology and training, I don’t see where the Public Disclosure Act provides for that.

“The Public Disclosure Act, in its main interpretation, targets those MPs and elected officials, but every-day corruption that people experience daily will not be handled through that legislation.” 

While multiple legislative initiatives have been spoken of to aid the fight against graft, Mr Aubry said: “None of it speaks to an integrated anti-corruption strategy; a strategy that brings these things together to their greatest effect.”

The US, in its narcotics report, said: “Since 2017, The Bahamas has enacted, but not fully brought into force, a range of laws to fight official corruption. Draft laws presented by the prior administration to establish an ombudsman’s office and an anti-corruption agency, focused on public corruption, had not yet been taken up in October by the new administration.

“In May 2021, the first information commissioner and deputy commissioner were appointed under the Freedom of Information Act to support public access to government records. Parliament has not yet brought into force clauses of the same Act, however, that define a process for the public to obtain information.

“It is important The Bahamas follow through with plans to fully bring into force transparency and accountability legislation to prevent and address corruption, and preserve public confidence.”

Mr Aubry, referring to a recent Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) report that found trust in government in Latin America and the Caribbean was lower than anywhere else in the world, said such trends made societies more prone to corruption because people felt they will not be treated fairly by institutions and the existing system.

“I think that there is a lot of intent and focus, and we have a lot of discussion relating to accountability and transparency, but it is a shifting culture and we are struggling with execution,” he added. “It’s the pace of execution we have to look at as we move forward with these things.”

The Bahamas was “behind the times” in fully enacting its Freedom of Information Act, Mr Aubry said, and has “yet to see the publication” of all contract awards made by public entities as required by the Public Procurement Act since it took effect in September 2021.

The Davis administration has argued that multiple mechanisms and personnel must first be appointed before that Act can be implemented, especially the identification of a chief procurement officer. Without this person, it has argued contract award details cannot be published.

However, Michael Pintard told Tribune Business earlier this year that having a chief procurement officer in place was “not a prerequisite to fulfilling your obligations” under the law, and publishing details of all government contracts awarded between September 1 and November 7 last year, based on his reading of the Public Procurement Act.

He spoke out after Simon Wilson, the Ministry of Finance’s financial secretary, told a media briefing by the Prime Minister’s Office that the Minnis administration’s failure to follow the necessary public service protocols and appoint a chief procurement officer meant it was impossible for the Government to reveal these contract details as required by law.

Mr Pintard, who previously accused the Davis administration of violating the law on this issue, said the Act did not specify that a chief procurement officer must be in place for information on all government contracts to be released “within 60 days” of their award to the successful bidder.

This newspaper’s analysis of the Act appeared to back the Opposition leader’s assessment, as clause 61 on “contract award notice” puts the disclosure burden squarely on the “procuring entity” - meaning the government ministry, department, agency or state-owned enterprise (SOE) issuing the tender - to publish the bidding outcome.

And, even if the chief procurement officer’s appointment was required first by the Act, and he had read it wrong, Mr Pintard argued that there is no legal impediment to publishing contract award details before this happens. Doing so, he argued, would demonstrate the Government’s commitment to procurement transparency and accountability, and taxpayer value for money.