KINGSTON, Jamaica — Opposition Senator Cleveland Tomlinson on Friday drew attention to what he called the “trust deficit” when he flagged what he said was the lack of proper oversight and accountability in the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NaRRA) Bill.

Tomlinson raised concerns during the ongoing debate on the Bill in the Senate.

NaRRA is the body established by the Government to lead reconstruction efforts following Hurricane Melissa which left an estimated US$12.2 billion in damage.

“The deficiencies in this Bill should be taken in the context of the level of the trust the Government is asking of the people,” said Tomlinson.

“When a Government asks its citizens to accept a statutory body with vast powers, a single unaccountable executive, no governing board, no audit committee, no mandatory parliamentary oversight of its directions and decisions, when it asks for that level of trust, the threshold question is: has this Government demonstrated, through its conduct in office, the kind of probity and respect for institutional boundaries and constitutional norms that would justify giving any administration this kind of unrestrained executive authority over billions of public dollars?” he added.

According to Tomlinson, “The record speaks for itself. This is a Government that has faced repeated adverse findings in our courts on constitutional grounds. This is a Government whose record of respect for constitutional constraints has been tested and found wanting, not by the Opposition, but by the judiciary.”

Continuing, Tomlinson said, “When the courts of this land have had occasion to examine whether this administration has remained within its constitutional boundaries, the rulings have not been flattering. That is a matter of public record, and it is directly relevant to whether this Senate should be comfortable passing legislation that concentrates this much un-reviewed executive power in this administration’s hands.”

The Opposition senator argued that beyond the constitutional record, Jamaicans need to be honest about the broader culture of public financial management.

He noted that, “NaRRA will sit outside the normal budgetary appropriation process, or at least, the Bill does not confirm that it sits within it. Its CEO (chief executive officer) can sign procurement contracts of unlimited value without a co-signatory. Its minister can direct it operationally in writing but those directions need not be gazetted, need not be reported to Parliament, need not be made public in any form.”

Tomlinson said that, “In a country where procurement irregularities have been a persistent feature of public life, where major infrastructure projects have been plagued by cost overruns and questionable contractor selections, the Government is asking us to create a procurement and project delivery vehicle with less oversight than the bodies that already exist. That is extraordinary.”

He stressed that, “This is not an argument that the Government is planning to steal. It is an argument that good governance does not depend on the personal integrity of those who happen to hold power at any given moment. Good governance depends on systems, on structures, on checks and balances that work regardless of who is in office.”

He added, “The tragedy of this Bill is not that it creates NaRRA; it is that it creates NaRRA without the institutional architecture that would make it trustworthy under any Government.”

— Lynford Simpson