For decades, successive Virgin Islands governments have shamelessly wasted the public’s money by awarding pork-barrel contracts to cronies and other unqualified bidders.
Last month, a divided House of Assembly barely passed a well-conceived reform to help change that.
We applaud the five government-side lawmakers and the speaker of the House for voting the measure through.
On the other hand, we were greatly disappointed that five opposition members voted against it.
The reform — an amendment to the Public Finance Management Regulations that passed last month after the speaker broke a five-to-five tie — is an important step toward better governance that accords with recommendations in the 2022 Commission of Inquiry report.
In effect, it takes power away from elected ministers and puts it in the hands of the Central Tenders Board, a technocratic committee chaired by the financial secretary and made up of other public officers.
Under the previous regulations, the Cabinet was required only to “consider” the board’s recommendations before awarding a contract as it saw fit.
Under the amended regulations, the Cabinet must follow the board’s recommendations except in cases where “exceptional circumstances,” unavoidable events or a national budget shortfall would make them unattainable.
This reform, which will help de-politicise the tender process, is a big step in the right direction. But you wouldn’t know it from listening to Opposition Leader Ronnie Skelton, the only opposition member to speak during the debate on the amendment. Mr. Skelton opened his brief contribution with a classic scare tactic.
“These things sound simple, they sound logical, but they are destroying us as a government and a people, and nobody seems to be able to stand up and say, ‘Enough is enough,’” he said.
Though he did not provide evidence to support that claim — or even to clearly explain it — he did go on to make a fairly reasonable point: Using the example of bush-cutting delays, he suggested that red tape and additional restrictions can hinder the Cabinet from accomplishing important work that can stimulate the economy.
Ultimately, though, he didn’t provide a convincing argument not to pass such a long-needed governance reform.
Worse, his comments — and four other opposition members’ decision to join him in voting against the amendment without explaining their choice during the public debate — are part of a larger pattern of opposition resistance to the badly needed governance reforms rightly agreed by the elected VI government after the COI report was published.
Like many of the COI recommendations, the contract-award reform is a no-brainer. As extensively documented by the COI, the tender process has historically been plagued with widespread “political interference,” “ministerial overreach,” and “generally poor contract execution and management.”
Indeed, Cabinet members in successive governments frequently waived the tender process entirely. Such carelessness led to many well-documented cases of mismanaged projects, including the BVI Airways fiasco, which wasted $7.2 million in taxpayers’ money; the Elmore Stoutt High School Perimeter Wall Project; the VI Neighbourhood Partnership Project; and others that are the now the subject of criminal investigations.
Mr. Skelton and his opposition colleague Myron Walwyn, who were both part of the Cabinet that approved the appalling BVI Airways deal, should know better than most why a better tender process is sorely needed.
It is embarrassing that only five legislators supported last month’s reform, which required the speaker’s tie-breaking vote due to the opposition’s five “nay” votes and the absence of Premier Dr. Natalio “Sowande” Wheatley; Education, Youth Affairs and Sports Minister Sharie De Castro; and opposition member Julian Fraser.
The COI recommendations are designed to keep the VI government accountable to the people, who are fed up with watching elected leaders waste public money.
The government, then, should keep pushing the reforms through. And the opposition should get with the programme.