By FAY SIMMONS

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

The Opposition’s leader is accusing the Government of bypassing the Public Procurement Act through the increased use of sole source bidding.

Michael Pintard told Tribune Business that there had been no competitive bidding on numerous contract awards, including the outsourcing of New Providence’s baseload electricity generation and electricity grid to Bahamas Utilities Company (a FOCOL Holdings subsidiary) and Bahamas Grid Company/Island Grid, respectively.

While agreeing there are circumstances where single source bidding may be justified, he argued that the Government must be transparent over the rationale for using this process given that the lack of competition raises questions over whether Bahamian taxpayers are obtaining the best price and deal.

“The very nature of public-private partnership calls for competitive bidding,” Mr Pintard said. “In some cases, it makes sense and it’s justifiable, and in others it isn’t. Once you’ve made that determination, the public deserves to know what is the length of such an arrangement and the terms of that arrangement.”

He stressed that details such as project cost, interest rates attached to any debt financing and, in the case of PPPs, the method by which companies will regain their initial investment and generate a profit should be made available to the public. Among the PPPs to attract the Opposition’s scrutiny are the Exuma and Eleuthera road paving projects by Bahamas Striping and its Caribbean Pavement Solutions subsidiary.

Mr Pintard also resumed his attacks on the Government for “single sourcing” bids for the development of an online portal to capture boat and yacht charter fees and harbour navigational aids- contracts that were awarded to DigieSoft Technologies and Adolpha Maritime Group, respectively.

“Many other contracts that are not PPPs, the Government just simply single source it,” he said. “The Ministry of Transport, for example, with the navigational aids, with the creation of the software for different ministries to collect government taxes and repatriate monies to the Consolidated Fund.

“We pointed out that some companies have won bids where they never even entered. They were never part of the process. So, it must mean the Government single sourced those companies, gave them the contracts without competitive bidding.” 

Mr Pintard had earlier this week accused the Davis administration of being the “largest single sourcing administration” in the history of The Bahamas.

Appearing on the Make it Make Sense radio show on Monday, Mr Pintard claimed that the Davis administration has “consistently” avoided competitive bidding and entered into “narrow” agreements with preferred companies.

“The PLP is the largest single sourcing administration under Davis in the history of The Bahamas,” said Mr Pintard. “What they’re doing is entering into a narrow relationship with companies, and they aren’t doing that just for the good of the Bahamian people. They have should explained to us what is motivating you circumventing consistently competitive bidding to give to A, B, C or D.”