The decadent Brassington “Clause”

Dec 28, 2013 News

---

Winston Brassington, head of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) has by his very actions, skillfully crafted his own clause: “The Brassington Clause.”

Under every contract agreement proposed by the Privatization Unit which falls under NICIL, the unit stipulates that the company reserves the right to reject any bid. Even if one were to submit a high offer to secure a piece of property being disposed of by the state, someone with a much lower offer can be handed the property.
Apart from this now infamous ‘Brassington Clause’ Winston Brassington also fails to give details of contracts and other transactions under the guise of ‘confidentiality.’
Over the past few months, whenever Brassington is questioned on the circumstances surrounding the awarding of contracts, he provides the famous, “confidentiality clause” as his plaster, stating clearly that he is not permitted to provide the information because it is “confidential.”
Financial Spokesman for the political opposition coalition, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), Carl Greenidge, asserts that the confidentiality clause is clearly something that can be used as a means to protect the premature revelation of information which may undermine negotiations and give one competitor an advantage over another.
However, in the case of NICIL, Greenidge says that the information which the entity deems to be “confidential” in many instances, is because there is or at least the perception of much corruption surrounding it.
“In the case of the allocation of a portion of land to the conglomerate, Ansa McAl in the Canje Basin, we first heard it in the foreign press. It was only about a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), but the information was deemed confidential in the local arena. There can be absolutely nothing confidential about that, especially as it regards the bidders for the contracts.
“Confidentiality is often abused by NICIL…It is the enemy of transparency and just a cover up for secrets.”
He suggested, too, that secrecy is not something that facilitates careful analysis in most cases. “So in the case of contactors and the award of tenders in all instances where they wanted confidentiality it always turned up that it’s a cover for something illegal.
“It’s always some wrongdoing or rules are being broken or contracts are being given out to favourites. And I have seen no instance where the government can justifiably claim that information they kept confidential, when revealed, was necessary to protect our national interest. The Brassington clause is just a cover for crookedness.”
“The other clause about them rejecting bids as they feel like is not an absolute right. In the tendering arrangement you will have that type of reserve power but it is usually associated with certain cases like if they have suspicions about a particular contractor or if it is an issue regarding a special type of equipment being used for the job then you can remove the contract on those terms.
“However, you can’t have power to reward a contract to whoever you feel like. That is in defiance of the rules and it is an absolute disrespect and misuse of power. And their use of it is simply illegal. The reserve power is not unusual but its exercise has to be justifiable at all times and they (NICIL) should explain their reasons and justify it in the name of transparency.”
“But this clause just shows that NICIL is simply allergic to transparency.”
Greenidge asserted too, that the motion against the company will be followed up fiercely come next year as the corrupt acts of the agency must come to an end.
NICIL was initially established as a holding company which was intended to oversee the allocation of assets that came out of the privatization of assets.  It was also responsible for advising on how properties are disposed of but the government instead, “uses NICIL to get these lands and distribute them to its friends without having to go through any proper procedure for vetting or for setting prices or anything like that,” Greenidge expressed.
He said that the motion arose from general concerns such as the aforementioned especially as it relates to how they had taken decisions with government wealth in a number of projects. The motion was passed in 2012 calling on the government to account for the lands that they have been entrusted with and to explain the basis upon which these lands have been handed out. Also, to ensure that the agency brings its accounts up to date and that they hand over the monies and excess funds over to the treasury.
The motion called upon the Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh,  to take entities such as NICIL that had been given special privileges to hold funds without transferring them to the treasury, to hand them over instantly .
Greenidge had also cited that the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh failed in complying with the resolution which came out of the motion on NICIL.

---

---