PPP/C parliamentary whip Gail Teixeira says that an amendment in 2003 to the 2003 Procurement Bill phasing out the role of Cabinet had not been approved by the then government and this was why a change to the Act was now being sought.
Teixeira made the surprise revelation to the Sunday Stabroek when asked to defend the contradiction between the government’s position in 2003 and its recent announcement – 10 years after the Act had been signed into law – that it wanted to preserve a role for Cabinet in public procurement.
Observers say that the loss by the PPP/C of its parliamentary majority had made this a critical concern amid the intense pressure for the government to set up the Public Procurement Com-mission (PPC). Critics say that the government’s declaration that it wants to preserve a role for Cabinet is evidence that it was never serious about letting procurement be handled independently under the PPC.
In an invited comment last week, Teixeira, who is also the presidential advisor on governance, said that an unauthorised amendment which had been introduced into the legislation during the debate in 2003 was responsible for the idea that the government wanted to take itself out of the procurement process.
Teixeira said that the Bill that was written originally came to the Parliament after consultation with the World Bank, IMF and other development partners. “In the midst of the debate there was a sidebar with the Speaker [Ralph Ramkarran], Winston Murray [of the PNCR] and Attorney General Doodnauth Singh. They then came with an amendment [for the Bill]. Government ministers did not recognise nor did they know of the meeting,” Teixeira said.
“Government had no choice but to proceed with the Bill,” she said. “That amendment was not approved either by Cabinet or by the President,” she said. “The original contents of the Bill are what was negotiated. The changes that came after were not approved,” she said.
Teixeira said that a clause in the Bill prior to the amendment being tabled gives government the power to give a no-objection to contracts above $16 million. The amendment was moved by then Finance Minister Sais Kowlessar and sought to insert a new subsection to clause 54. That clause read: “Cabinet’s involvement under this section shall cease upon the constitution of the Public Procurement Com-mission.”
Government wants Cab-inet to retain a no-objection role in public procurement under the yet to be constituted Public Procurement Com-mission (PPC), a departure from their position a decade ago during the debate of the Procurement Bill 2003, when they said Cabinet’s role would “fade away” once the Commission fructifies.
In that debate held on Thursday June 19, 2003, speakers on the government side spoke of removing politicians from the role of public procurement and diminishing Cabinet’s involvement in the process with the coming into being of the PPC.
However, ten years later, the PPC is no closer to being established as the government has not yet submitted its list of names to the Public Accounts Committee of the Parliament.
Writing in a column in the Kaieteur News on June 30, 2013, Alliance for Change (AFC) Member of Parliament Khemraj Ramjattan said that it was unsurprising that the government would insist on Cabinet’s no objection being part of the procurement mechanism even after the setting up of the PPC
“When the Procurement Act of 2003 was being debated, many of the PPP proponents of that Act made it quite clear that they wanted a procurement process which was above board, and in which there will be no subversion of the Public Procurement Commission’s functions and powers when that constitutional body became constituted and commenced operations. It was openly promoted and promised by the then PPP Government that the Public Procurement Commission was going to be constituted almost immediately after the assenting of the Procurement Act 2003. I was fooled by this promise,” said Ramjattan, who in 2003 sat on the government side of the House.
“I want to point out that what some of the leading PPP parliamentarians and ministers said then in 2003 which makes the PPP’s position one decade later so outrageous and contradictory,” Ramjattan wrote.
Then Minister of Housing and Water Shaik Baksh said that over time, Cabinet’s role in procurement would fade away. “The National Procurement Commission will take hold. Do not be afraid, they will exercise their constitutional responsibilities as laid down in the functions of that Commission. It will be coming, and it says here, to promote the goal of progressively phasing out Cabinet’s involvement, and decentralising the procurement process. It is here in black and white. You must understand that this will come in time. So Cabinet has no vested interest in holding on to these kinds of powers…” said Baksh during the 2003 debates, according to the Hansard.
According to the Hansard for that sitting, Manzoor Nadir said, “Once this Procurement Commission comes in place Cabinet’s role in the awards of contracts will be vanishing away… And I heard the talk of being accustomed to democratic centralism and not wanting to lose control. This process is a fine example of the Government putting itself out of power; giving up that right which other governments, prior to this one, felt as sacred and never saw it fit to change.”
“This Government is very happy to get the politician out of procurement. Mr Speaker, this whole issue of the power to appoint the Board and this hierarchy – there is a similar system of hierarchy with Ministerial Tender Boards, with Regional Tender Boards, with Central Tender Boards and with Government. That system has been criticized as being archaic, inefficient, and in need of reform. That is a system that has been criticized, and the Government went and consulted, produced the first Bill, produced a second Bill, and is now waiting for more engagement to produce the enabling legislation for the Procurement Commission.”
The Hansard also recorded then Minister of Finance Saisnarine Kowlessar as saying, “…the Public Procurement Commission, when appointed, would have both an oversight and advisory role. This would complement the work of both the Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committee, and provide the checks and balances that may be required to make the system efficient and effective. There is talk that the Government wants to delay the process of appointment of this Commission, so that it can have its way from that delay, but this is far from the truth. “There is no such intention to subvert the law, and everyone knows that the Government has not been dragging its feet in the setting up of this Commission.”
He had said that when the PPC is established, the responsibilities of the national board would be limited to those provided for in subsection (1), and all other responsibilities listed in this section shall be the responsibility of the Public Procurement Commission.
“So no one should be in doubt as to the role of the Public Procurement Commission. It will be respected,” Kowlessar had said.
