An international anti-corruption watchdog group has found validity in BahamasB2B’s claims that the Bahamian Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee fails to properly scrutinize the public finances and government spending, and has expressed concerns over the public procurement process saying that Prime Minister Perry Christie’s Ministerial Code of Ethics has failed to function in practice.
Transparency International, in its 2004 study of the Bahamas and seven other Caribbean countries, said the Bahamas Code of Ethics required Cabinet Ministers to avoid material conflicts between their private interests and public duties, and avoid using their positions to enrich themselves or their families.
Ministers were required, upon taking office, to discontinue private work, resign as directors and officers in any private companies, and divest themselves of holdings in companies that held contracts with the government.
However, Transparency International said, “In a number of cases, however, public controversy has surrounded the extent to which this and similar provisions of the ethics code have been violated in practice.”
The report cited the controversy surrounding Leslie Miller, Minister of Trade and Industry, in 2003 when the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) leased office space in a Harrold Road shopping center complex his firm allegedly controlled. Mr. Miller denied any conflict of interest at the time, saying he had relinquished all of his private interests upon assuming office.
Transparency International noted that all eight Caribbean countries surveyed did not have a properly functioning Public Accounts Committee as part of their Parliaments.
This portentially left “the door very wide open to corruption” as the Auditor-General’s reports in all countries were receiving ineffective scrutiny.
On public procurement and contracts, the Transparency International report supported allegations of impropriety first made public by BahamasB2B over two years ago, saying that in The Bahamas, “there have been instances in which conflicts of interest concerns have led to questionable outcomes, particularily at the level of Cabinet procurement of works”.
When it came to competitive tendering and the advertising of public works contracts, Transparency International claimed that not all were advertised to the private sector.
It added, “Additionally, public works procurement may be selective based on past experience, especially in the area of major development projects, except in the case of projects funded by international donor agencies. In such cases, standard international competitive bidding rules apply.
And Trandsparency International said for projects funded at the local level, “Sole sourcing is generally discouraged at all levels. Ministers also have some power of discretion under the selective tendering process. Historically, this has been an area of abuse with allegations of cronyism and neputism.”
The report also expressed concern that the Bahamas was the only one of eight countries surveyed in which the Director of Public Prosecutions’ position did not have statutory protection, leaving him “in effect subordinate to a politically-appointed attorney general. Bahamas B2B has been very vocal about this particular situation as it is well known that the current Bahamas Attorney General, Alfred Sears, has unusual ties to alleged gangster Franklyn Wilson.
