Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday called for the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) to investigate government’s huge increases in thresholds for restricted tendering and he warned heads of agencies not to get ensnared by illegalities.
“If they comply with this they will be complicit in an illegal act and could be held responsible for the consequences, face the courts, face fines… [and] charges,” Jagdeo said during a press conference held at his Church Street, Georgetown office.
His comments came a day after shadow minister of finance, PPP/C Member of Parliament Juan Edghill released a copy of a circular, signed by Mark Bender, Deputy Chairman of the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB), advising permanent secretaries, agency and corporation heads and regional administrations that the threshold for restricted tendering in the case of contracts for goods and services has been increased from $3 million to $10 million, and that the threshold for contracts for construction has been increased from $10 million to $20 million.
The threshold for the request for quotation method has also been doubled from $1.5 million to $3 million.
After reading the contents of the circular, Jagdeo quoted several sections of the Procurement Act, which he said supported his contention that the increases are unlawful.
He said that Section 54(1) is quite explicit when it states that “The Cabinet shall have the right to review all procurements the value of which exceeds fifteen million Guyana dollars. The Cabinet shall conduct its review on the basis of a streamlined tender evaluation report to be adopted by the authority mentioned in Section 17 (2). The Cabinet and, upon its establishment, the Public Procurement Commission, shall review annually the Cabinet’s threshold for review of procurements, with the objective of increasing that threshold over time so as to promote the goal of progressively phasing out Cabinet involvement and decentralising the procurement process.” He stressed that this is the only section of the law that speaks specifically to thresholds unlike the others, which speak to general regulations.
Jagdeo stressed that the Act clearly gives the Cabinet, not the minister, the power to review the threshold. “The Cabinet and the PPC. There is no Cabinet. The Cabinet was resigned, so that leaves only the Public Procurement Commission and the Public Procurement Commission has not met on this matter. So [Finance Minister Winston] Jordan acted illegally when he acted on the advice of the board that he controls,” he said.
In this regard, he called on the PPC to look into the situation immediately. In addition, he said his party will write the PPC while hinting at the possibility of a letter being sent to the police. “And Jordan will have a lot to answer for in the future because of this illegal act and anyone who complies will this illegality will have to answer for that too,” he said.
He said that he wanted the public officers to know that the contracts that were noted by the Cabinet after December 21st, based on the rulings of Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire SC upholding a no-confidence motion against the government, were all “illegally done.” He urged them not to “take any action to pursue them further.” Jagdeo stressed that they all must act in compliance with the law.
Edghill, in a statement to the media, said the increases were pursuant to an Order, dated January 23rd, 2019, more than one month after the APNU+AFC government was defeated by way of successful no-confidence vote in the National Assembly. “Article 106(6) of our constitution states that on passage of a no confidence motion by the majority of all elected members of the National Assembly, the President and his Cabinet shall resign, coupled with the CJ’s ruling of January 31, 2019, that following the passage of the motion, the President and Cabinet stand resigned. Therefore, they are merely in office in a caretaker capacity and, as such, these actions are unconstitutional,” he noted.
As a result, he contended that Bender’s circular was illegal and would lead to criminal proceedings being instituted against public officials who may be tempted to act on the directive.
The NPTAB sees no illegality in the move, with Bender telling Stabroek News shortly after the information was released that Jordan acted in accordance with the law and has not changed thresholds for ministerial or regional agencies but for two methods of procurement at the national level.
Bender told Stabroek News that he will not deal with Edghill’s letter and the allegations therein as he did not want to be caught up in political bantering.
Bender said that while Edghill has questioned the legitimacy of the document, he is following orders in accordance with the Procurement Act and that there is nothing sinister in the amendments.
He explained that changes were made to the thresholds in 2016 and are annually revised to cater for market changes and other factors. Bender said after an analysis over the two-year period, it was recommended by procuring agencies and from analysis of the NPTAB that the threshold for methods be revised again.
“We are constantly analyzing these things. We have discussions with procuring entities and you know analysis of the general market conditions, types of procurements and from the numbers of analyses resulted in these changed thresholds,” he said.
Edghill, like Jagdeo, warned that heads of agencies should ignore the increases as they are illegal in the aftermath of the passage of the motion of the no-confidence, by virtue of which he says Cabinet is no longer functioning and a caretaker government is in place.
