Surveyor wants private sector landlord database

Senior Reporter

andrea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

A chartered surveyor is calling for private sector landlords funded by the State to be placed on a searchable database.

In a statement over the weekend, Afra Raymond said in the early 2000s, the then-People’s National Movement administration, under the late Patrick Manning, made ambitious urban development proposals intended to reduce the State’s historic dependence on private-sector landlords.

That programme, he said, was executed by UDECOTT, under the hand of Calder Hart, with 2.3 million square feet of offices constructed by the State in Port-of-Spain.

“The iconic, elliptical, blue-glass office tower on Independence Square is Nicholas Towers, which contains 100,000 square feet of offices—so our public money funded the construction of new offices 23 times the size of Nicholas Towers,” Raymond pointed out.

He indicated that apart from the staggering UDECOTT corruption confirmed at the 2009 Uff Enquiry, he has always had nagging doubts as to whether that massive office construction programme achieved its objectives.

“Despite my efforts, it was never clear if our monthly rental bill for State offices had been significantly reduced as a result of that UDECOTT programme. There certainly have been no official declarations of that achievement, which one would expect if indeed that had been the case, given our political culture.”

Raymond said he was pleased to hear Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, at a post-Cabinet briefing in May, reveal that the issue of secrecy/confidentiality of State office rentals was specifically addressed.

“We will release the existing list to the public, in the interest of transparency … this is your money, this is taxpayers’ money, and you have a right to know where your money is being spent,” Persad-Bissessar said then, noting that the minister has been given the authority to release the list of the rentals of properties by the State.

“If public members don’t want people to know that we are renting your building, Government is renting your building, with taxpayers’ money, then too bad for you, don’t rent out your building, do not rent out your building if you don’t want people to know that you are renting your building to the Government … simple as that, so don’t come and cry and plead ‘privacy’, there is no privacy when we are spending taxpayers’ dollars.”

Raymond said he entirely agreed with those emphatic statements by the Prime Minister and is now calling for all the details of the State’s office leases to be published as a searchable database showing addresses, owners’ identities, square footage, carparking, rental paid, lease terms (ie start and finish dates), and repairing/maintenance obligations.

Also agreeing with Raymond was Joint Consultative Council president Fazir Khan, who outlined that once taxpayers’ funds were involved, all of the private sector landlords’ information should be transparent to the public.

“Just like the Office of Procurement Regulations (OPR) is currently producing a database where you can get all the contracts awarded in terms of any contract, whether it’s a construction contract or supply contract. Property rentals simply fall under the same sort of category, and there’s no reason why it should not be available on a public database, accessible to the public,” Khan said.

The JCC head said too many instances persist where buildings are being leased at taxpayers’ expense while remaining vacant.

“We had a lot of situations like that and probably still do, where properties are rented and not occupied. The time for that kind of wastage has long passed. It should never have been allowed in the first place,” Khan said.

With the OPR now fully operational, he suggested that the agency take a lead role in addressing such inefficiencies by promoting transparency and data sharing.

With millions of dollars spent annually on government leases that yield no tangible benefits, the issue of unoccupied rented properties has been a longstanding concern raised by civil society groups. Transparency advocates have called for a publicly accessible database of all state rental agreements and building usage.

Efforts to reach the procurement regulator Beverly Khan for comment yesterday were unsuccessful.