Hon. Edison Baird
Sandy Ground
Anguilla, BWI
AI 2640
November 26, 2014
Mr. Patrick Hanley
Advisor to the Chief Minister
Ministry of Finance
The Secretariat
PO Box 60
The Valley, Anguilla
Re: The Procurement Board: Tender your resignation and place correspondences with the Governor in the public domain
Dear Patrick,
You are a member of the Anguilla United Movement (AUM), a political party that has publicly and repeatedly stated its commitment to the principles of openness, transparency and accountability.
Against this backdrop, I am requesting that you place a copy of Governor Christina Scott’s letter to you, dated May 8, 2014, in the public domain, in which she recommended that you resign from the Procurement Board. I am also requesting that you place a copy of your response to her in the public domain. You responded to her on July 8, 2014, in which you purported to justify your reasons for continuing on the Board.
I continue to believe that you should tender your resignation as a member of the Procurement Board, which is tasked with the responsibility for purchasing goods, works and services on behalf of the Government.
Because you are involved in the ebb and flow of politics, you run the risk of being perceived as being biased and partisan. This is precisely the point made by the Governor, as noted in Ex min
14/357. She said, in part, that your continued membership of the Procurement Board would call into question the political independence of the Board in a way that would undermine its operation.
I now turn to an examination of the arguments advanced by you as justification for remaining on the Procurement Board, as recorded in your interview with Radio Anguilla local News,
dated October 30, 2014.
Mr. Hanley pointed out to the Governor that as a member of the Board, he is not involved in the pre-qualification or selection of any bidder invited in the initial stage of the competitive tendering process.
You are missing the point. The pre-qualification or selection process is simply designed to eliminate those contractors who do not have the technical, financial and logistical capacity as well as the experience to competently carry out the project for which tenders have been invited. Ultimately, the Board, of which you are a member, will select the contractor who is best suited to do the job.
You also seek to justify your membership of the Board by pointing out that you are not, the only member of the Board and that decisions of the Board are based on majority vote. The Governor is aware of this. She is undoubtedly concerned that your presence on the board runs counter to section 4 ( c ) of the Public Procurement and Contract Administration Act, 2012. The purpose of this section is to provide for increased public confidence in the Government Procurement process by maintaining safeguards to ensure fairness, openness and transparency.
Your presence on the Board cannot help in the realization of this objective. Every contractor knows that you are an advisor to the Chief Minister, that you are a declared candidate for District 5 in the upcoming elections, and furthermore that you are a member of the AUM, the party in Government. Given the above, some may very well consider it to be an exercise in futility to even submit a tender. They may perceive the Board to be an uneven playing field, favouring the ‘bowlers’ and the ‘batsmen’ who are members and supporters of the AUM ‘Cricket Team.’
You further seek to erect an additional platform of justification for remaining on the Board. Mr. Hanley who is a candidate in the 2015 General Elections said, the procurement board does not only determine matters pertaining to district 5 but in fact deals with matters pertaining to the entire country.
Unfortunately, you have given the Governor’s statement a very narrow and misleading interpretation. You appear to be suggesting that the Governor wrote to you based on your decision to seek public office specifically in District 5 and that had you decided to contest the election in another constituency no such letter would have been forthcoming from the Governor.
The truth is very simple. Any member of the Board who announces his or her candidacy in any of the seven electoral districts would attract the same attention from the Governor. The decision to run in any district may very well create the perception of a conflict of interest. This, in turn, could call into question the political independence of the Board in a way that would undermine its operation.
Finally, you contend that the Governor does not comprehend your role in politics. Mr. Hanley in his letter to the Governor Christina Scott on 8th, July – in part states- “it is unfortunate that you associate my decision to offer myself as a candidate as a partisan act.” Politics, by its very nature, is partisan. It involves competition between and among conflicting ideas, policies and solutions. The moment you voluntarily announced your candidacy, you voluntarily clothed yourself in a garment of partisanship. You became visible to everyone, some of whom may undoubtedly view you as being biased and partisan.
In conclusion, it is well established that in any democracy the people have an inalienable right to information, especially in relationship to pertinent issues in society of a divisive nature. It is only in a Dictatorship or a Banana Republic that information is systematically hidden from society. Your decision to hide the correspondence between you and the Governor is alarming. It is also unacceptable that you took two months and three days to respond to her recommendation that you tender your resignation from the Board.
I therefore call on you to act democratically and with transparency by resigning from the Procurement Board and place the correspondence in question in the public domain.
Sincerely,
Edison A. Baird, MA
Elected Representative,
Road North Constituency
cc: Ms. Christina Scott, HE The Governor
Hon. Hubert Hughes, Chief Minister
Hon. Evans Mcniel Rogers, Leader of the Opposition,
House of Assembly
Dr. Ellis Lorenzo Webster, Leader of the AUM
Mr. Victor Banks, Leader of the AUF
Mr. Sutcliffe Hodge, Leader of the DOVE
The Press
(Published without editing by The Anguillian newspaper.)
