Manufactured dissent

AFRA RAYMOND

“Ambiguity and silence (are) the enemy of ethics and integrity.” – Richard Bistrong

“‘Manufactured consent’ is supported by ‘…effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function by reliance on market forces, internalised assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion…’” – Noam Chomsky

The Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property Act (PPDPPA) was approved by Parliament in 2015 and amended three times by this administration. The regulations to the act were approved by Parliament in January 2022, so the stage was set for implementation of this important law.

This series deals with the intentional series of delays now emerging from our Attorney General and the Judiciary.

Our Judiciary made formal objections to the act, which had already been approved by Parliament. It is a piercing irony that those submissions were unsupported by any citations or research – none whatsoever.

Professional responsibility is one of the important lenses to examine the new public procurement law and the implementation challenges.

Grand corruption is impossible without the active assistance, advice and scheming of professionals – lawyers, bankers, accountants, engineers, surveyors. The thieves cannot function without the professionals – after all, as the old saying goes, “The upholder is worse than the thief!” That saying speaks to the particular responsibilities which are vested in the professional class.

In the struggle to write and lobby for this crucial law, we were never able to get any interest from the Law Association – including the present LATT board. No comments from the Institute of Chartered Accountants or the Bankers’ Association.

Members of those professions play a pivotal role in looting our country and undermining our attempts to create a decent civilisation. For that matter, I cannot recall the UWI ever making any statement of support for the new procurement law.

The pipeline is simple, from the lawyers who prepare the agreements/contracts to facilitate the nonsense to the accountants who need those contracts to approve the payments to the bankers who will not make any payments without proper documentation.

That is how grand corruption works. It is all done in comfortable air-conditioned offices in the good part of town with polite, well-qualified professionals. That is the scene.

The three professional bodies which should be clearest on their roles and responsibilities in this grievous matter have all maintained eloquent silences. In anticipation of those who will cry “not all” bankers/lawyers/accountants, we all know high-quality members of those professions; but the inescapable fact is that those professional bodies have chosen to be silent, by taking the side of the upholder. That is where we are.

The December 2020 suite of exemptions to the public procurement law effectively sealed the deal, since legal fees, auditing and accounting fees and government financing were removed from Office of the Procurement Regulator oversight. No group receiving that type of huge concession from the State is likely to raise any concerns on that same law, especially if it was seemingly oblivious before!

More to the point, there is a potent question at play here: how do we self-regulate? Can we identify and discipline wrongdoers in our own professions? Sharp criticisms are easy when the wrongdoers can be “othered” – that other race; those wicked people from South or North; those PNM or UNC people.

But what is our behaviour when the wrongdoer is actually one of our people, to the point where it is impossible to “other” that person or firm? That is the real challenge.

If we can only be clear and decisive is when it is one of the “others,” we have a long, bitter road ahead, because that is exactly what our rulers do when they show wilful blindness to wrongdoers. We can't really blame them: after all, those are their long-time colleagues and party members – you see?

When Anansi bounce up with Brer Rabbit...when all the king's horses and all the king's men becomes more than a long-time nursery rhyme, that is when we seeing utter intellectual bankruptcy. Intellectual bankruptcy is the inability to defend, far less advance, one’s position, in this episode made all the piercing by the abundance of resources available to the Judiciary and the AG.

Without any supporting facts, or law for that matter, we are witness to an unpardonable appeal to authority. I remember a barrister pardner of mine telling me how sometimes he would end up with a wretched case – the law and the evidence against you, the hasty client signed what they should not have, so all one can do is to “hold on for dear life and try to dance them out by the sheer effluxion of time!”

I am directly challenging the Judiciary, or the AG for that matter, to produce the evidence or citations to support their position on this important new law.

That is a reasonable request. In fact it is “trite law’”that submissions which are not supported by precedents or proper citations are rightfully rejected by the court. Sometimes, to assist an inexperienced advocate, the court may invite submissions on a point – ie for the evidence to be compiled and submitted in support of the point/s being advanced.

I would be interested to see what citations are gathered in support of those erroneous concerns.

Any person or organisation can make errors, which is why we have a Judiciary to set us right when we go adrift. It would be exemplary and refreshing, not to mention honest, if the Judiciary were to reflect on this episode and withdraw its 29-page submission in toto.

So, in yet another feat of political gymnastics, we in TT have now “manufactured dissent” (not consent!) and reversed the analysis of the esteemed Noam Chomsky. Well, I tell you.

Diary of a distraction

• April 12, 2022 – AG asked CJ for comments on implementation of the act

• May 25 – Judiciary responds with erroneous 29-pager, with no supporting citations whatsoever

• June 22 – AG delays implementation, supposedly to consider the unsupported submission;

• August 25 – OPR responds with comprehensive rebuttal of every one of the Judiciary’s misguided points, fully supported by sound citations;

• October 5 – Judiciary publishes its 29-page submission to the AG, under cover of its contrary press release;

• November 1 – High Court grants ex-parte leave to my application for copies of the AG’s April 12 letter and the judiciary’s May 25 letter of response. I had applied application for judicial review of the refusal to disclose those documents

• November 18 – Joint select committee meeting on the act, with government MPs Keith Scotland and Terrence Deyalsingh quizzing the OPR on its research, which is all a part of this “manufactured dissent,” no such query having been made of the Judiciary. Even monkeys know what tree to climb, it seems.

• January 13, 2023 – Case-management conference set for my judicial review case seeking disclosure of the AG’s letter of April 12, 2022 and the Judiciary’s reply of May 25. Why are those letters being concealed?

Afra Raymond is a chartered surveyor, managing director of Raymond & Pierre Ltd and a past president of the Joint Consultative Council for the Construction Industry (JCC).