Drain cleaning programme coming

This has got to be one of the oldest tricks in the book. The only reason why Mr O’Connor would not want me to contact him or respond to his article is because he knows that the allegations he is making cannot stand scrutiny and he does not wish the public to see the other side. In other words, only his intolerant point of view must prevail.

In the interest of equity and fairplay, however, I am asking that this response be published.

Peter O’Connor is obviously a great admirer of John Humphrey because he went out of his way to champion the strange approach adopted by John Humphrey to awarding contracts for infrastructure work. He has, however, forgotten that John Humphrey was always in trouble because his approach to contracts was often at variance to established procedures and was thus unsustainable.

The Humphrey app-roach to awarding contracts, as explained by O’Connor in his article, may work in the short term but it cannot withstand a legal challenge.

This is why, after the grand experiment of 1987 of simply "calling in contractors and allocating projects to them", the then Prime Minister, ANR Robinson, was forced to go to Parliament and use the NAR’s parliamentary majority to amend the Central Tenders Board Ordinance retroactively to protect Humphrey from legal action, because Humphrey was accused of awarding contracts in violation of the tender rules.

Peter O’Connor has thus distorted and misconstrued the actual process for getting work done in the public sector, and he should know better, because he has worked in the public domain for years, and he also has personal familiarity of legal challenges to contract awards.

It is easy for him to sit in his armchair now and say that we can solve our flooding problems by "just calling in contractors and assigning work to them", but he knows that the public procurement process in Trinidad and Tobago does not work that way. It might work in the Kingdom of Bahrain, or some other monarchy but not in this country.

Further, in this age of judicial review, any Minister who attempts to bypass the established tender rules, as Humphrey was accused of doing, will be censured by the Court and the contracts will be declared null and void.

One of the things I have learnt over my 14 years in Parliament is that when you take shortcuts in the public procurement process for reasons of expediency, your efforts will eventually come to naught or become embroiled in controversy and while it may take a little longer, it is always best to follow the correct procedures.

Accordingly, I do not, and could never, agree with O’Connor’s proposal to use the 1987 approach for awarding contracts by just "calling in contractors", but I wish to advise him that within the next few weeks, the Ministry will be embarking on a comprehensive national programme of cleaning drains and rivers, since we have taken the time over the last several months to prepare contract documents, invite tenders and award contracts in accordance with the proper procedures.

Because we have followed the proper procedures, we expect this drainage programme to be sustainable and to alleviate many of our localised flooding problems. O’Connor dismisses the need for a national drainage study, and he of all people should know that the pattern of industrial and residential development in Trinidad and Tobago over the last 15 years has changed the landscape, and significantly altered the pattern of run-off into our major rivers and water catchment basins.

One example is the reclamation of land at Invader’s Bay in Port-of-Spain for the purpose of commercial development, which has permanently altered the flow of storm water out of the Maraval River, and is responsible to a great extent for flash flooding in Woodbrook.

COLM IMBERT

Minister of Works and Transport