The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE potentially seminal National Development Plan will urge the government to prioritise enhancing transparency and accountability in its operations, the latest in a long line of official plans and reports that have encouraged such reforms even as successive governments prove slow to adopt them.

The Christie administration believes the NDP will be a groundbreaking document that will occupy a central role in the development of the nation, providing future governments, civil society and businesses with a blueprint for the future.

Crucially, the plan will be accompanied with accountability mechanisms, with the University of The Bahamas expected to release ritual reports highlighting whether milestones have been met

“That kind of analysis is going to be embedded in the overall culture of the country like never before and that is going to be important,” Gowon Bowe, chairman of the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation and NDP secretariat member, said yesterday.

A comprehensive, 491-page draft of the NDP was released over the weekend.

One area of focus has long been a rallying cry for activists, businesses and civil society: making government more transparent and accountable.

The NDP urges the government to post public tenders and contract awards online in order to ally “fears of favouritism”.

Bahamians frequently express concerns about how contracts are awarded. To address this, the NDP calls for the creation of a new Public Procurement Unit.

Developing a campaign-financing framework is also emphasised.

The NDP specifies that donations to political parties should be disclosed and an independent monitoring body responsible for campaign financing should be established.

The NDP calls for the government to implement the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), calling it a “cornerstone in transparent governance”.

Education Minister Jerome Fitzgerald, the minister responsible for the FOIA, has said he expects to table a revised FOI Bill in Parliament before the end of the year, nearly five years after the previous Ingraham administration passed its own version of the legislation. However, that FOIA did not have an enforcement date.

In addition, the NDP says the work of the auditor general should be enhanced by increasing the budget for that office, allowing more reviews of government programmes and ministries to take place.

The NDP also endorses the creation of an Office of the Ombudsman, which would be responsible for investigating complaints “from societies on how ministries are implementing their policies or programmes”.

Additionally, the NDP says legislation should require that ministers submit annual business plans to Parliament highlighting their major programmes and outcomes yearly along with key statistics.

The NDP calls for an independent task force that would propose revisions to the Judicial Service Commission, creating a procedure where judicial appointments are transparent and publicly known.

The plan urges the government to ensure transparency in the allocation of Crown land by digitising Crown land grant and leases. At the moment, officials do not discuss information about Crown land grant and leases, usually saying they require permission from the prime minister to disclose it.

The Christie administration faces the challenge of proving it is committed to implementing the plan’s objectives.

Many of the aforementioned plans are not new and have appeared in various forms in other plans and reports dating back years.

The Constitutional Commission’s 2013 report, for instance, called for campaign financing frameworks and for government institutions like the Judicial Services Commission to be made independent.

Although the commission’s chairman, Sean McWeeney, has said several such recommendations do not require a constitutional referendum to be achieved, the Christie administration has made no progress towards instituting such changes.

The government has also struggled to adhere to the accountability requirements of existing legislation even as the NDP urges it to increase its responsibilities in this area.

For years now several government institutions and quasi-government bodies have failed, for instance, to produce audits as required by law.

It has been years since the Public Hospitals Authority, the Water & Sewerage Corporation, the Broadcasting Corporation of The Bahamas, the University of The Bahamas and the Hotel Corporation of the Bahamas have had audits tabled in Parliament as required by the law.

If the NDP’s plans are implemented, these bodies will be required to annually produce much more information.