The life of the current Public Procurement Com-mission (PPC) expires today and despite the Constitution providing for two commissioners to be granted four-year terms to allow for transitioning, this has not happened.
PPC Chairperson Carol Corbin believes that there is still time for President David Granger to intervene and extend the tenure of the two commissioners. The Constitutions provides that, “Subject to paragraph (2), members of the Commission shall be appointed for three years and shall be eligible for re-appointment, for one other term of office, not earlier than three years after the end of their first term. (2) Of those members first appointed, two shall hold office for four years.”
Corbin believes that the framers wanted to allow for transitioning, hence the provision.
In 2016, more than 13 years after Guyana’s Constitution was amended to provide for the PPC and after much haggling between the PPP/C, when it was in government, and APNU and the AFC, the procurement oversight body was established.
Taking the oath of office were Corbin, Emily Dodson, Sukrishnalall Pasha, Ivor English and former Minister of Labour Nanda Kishore Gopaul.
The five would later choose Corbin, a former project management professional and accountant who has decades of experience working at the CARICOM Secretariat, as the Chairperson of the commission and in November 2016, they began operating.
This newspaper last Friday sat down with Corbin for an interview to discuss the PPC’s work during her tenure and the processes for transitioning.
It was then revealed that without presidential intervention, the life of the PPC has come to an end. All of the commissioners had three year tenureships and would have to come off. “Of those five appointments, two should have been given four years but it does not mean that there is not time for them to still take [their] place. You may have a gap of a day or ten days but it still can be done. It doesn’t mean that because the term has come to an end that those two appointments cannot take place,” she said.
Corbin said that she had written some months ago to Speaker of the National Assembly Dr Barton Scotland, informing him of the situation and he responded that he forwarded the communication to the Ministry of the Presi-dency.
“I formally wrote the Speaker of the National Assembly because remember we report to the National Assembly, bring to his attention that as of the 27th of October, the tenure of the commissioners would end,” she said.
“It is the President who appoints the commissioners after the process of selection and approval by the National Assembly,” she added.
The current political stalemate resulting from the passage of a no-confidence motion against the government last year will have no impact on the extension of the tenure of two commissioners, according to Corbin.
“I figure that the president is still the president,” she said as Dodson, who was also present and who is an attorney, added, “The Constitution has made it clear that the president should remain in office until a new president is sworn in…the appointment, to me, is solely within the purview of the president.”
And while the appointment of three commissioners would have to wait until after next year’s general elections, Corbin said that as far as she is aware, the president does not need the approval of anyone to make provisions for the one year increase in tenure for two current commissioners. “It is not something that has to go back to the parliament. Remember the five commissioners were already appointed by the president. It is just a matter of extending those two appointments by another year,” she said.
Team
Highlighting achievements of the PPC, Corbin pointed to their legislative feats and said that since the five commissioners worked “great” together as a team, it is as a collective unit that they achieved much.
Among the PPC’s key functions, according to the Procurement Act, are to: “Monitor and review the functioning of all procurement systems to ensure that they are in accordance with law and such policy guidelines as may be determined by the National Assembly; promote awareness of the rules, procedures and special requirements of the procurement process among suppliers, constructors and public bodies; safeguard the national interest in public procurement matters, having due regard to any international obligations; monitor the performance of procurement bodies with respect to adherence to regulations and efficiency in procuring goods and services and execution of works; approve of procedures for public procurement, disseminate rules and procedures for public procurement and recommend modifications thereto to the public procurement entities.”
It will also “monitor and review all legislation, policies and measures for compliance with the objects and matters under its purview and report the need for any legislation to the National Assembly; monitor and review the procurement procedures of the ministerial, regional, and national procurement entities as well as those of project execution units; investigate complaints from suppliers, contractors and public entities and propose remedial action; investigate cases of irregularity and mismanagement, and propose remedial action; initiate investigations to facilitate the effective functioning of public procurement systems.”
The PPC can enlist the aid of experts to assist with specialist advice as needed, and will also liaise with and refer matters to the police and the Auditor General and do all other acts as may be necessary to facilitate the efficient discharge of its functions.
All administrative systems are in place and they have hired 90 per cent of the needed staffing, according to Corbin. “In terms of administrative, we have established the Secretariat, put all systems in place to facilitate the continuation of work of the commission. So even though we are going off, when new commissioners are appointed it should be a seamless transition. Of course having two commissioners on board would have assisted that process more. I guess the framers of the Constitution anticipated this would happen; that if you had two old commissioners on board [and] three new ones coming in, it would give them a full year’s grace period to be fully involved,” she said.
Legislative reform was another area where successes were recorded and Corbin pointed to amendments to the current Procurement Act and the work done on recommendations and proposals for an overhaul of the Act, that would change it up for the most part.
Work to make e-procurement possible was also started as well as the setting up of a database of all bidders for public contracts.
Having debarment regulations implemented is another achievement of the PPC and only recently, the body announced the names of persons who have been debarred from being awarded government contracts for a specified period.
Visits to most of Guyana’s 10 administrative regions were also undertaken by the commission to observe the procurement processes in those areas and to provide those regions with necessary help.
“So we have been monitoring the execution of the work and providing them with feedback in areas of weakness identified,” Corbin said.
Meanwhile, she believes that given that Guyana is set to receive a significant amount of revenue from the oil and gas sector, focus must be placed on strengthening procurement in the public procuring entities.
“There is capacity [lacking] in most of the procuring entities. If it is that there will be more spending in the very near future, we have to ensure that the government entities have the capacity that they require,” she said, emphasising that this is currently not the case.
“There is obviously a need to ensure that they have the appropriate level of staff and it does come back to payment of staff. Ultimately, the public service rules [are in effect] but every time we have an engagement with the procuring agencies, this is what we are told. ‘We don’t have the staff for the work you require us to do. And we don’t have the staff to give you the data that you need. The problem is we can’t recruit because they want a better level of renumeration.’ That is it,” she added.
The PPC has recommended the agencies scout out University of Guyana students who are about to graduate and when they do, take them and put them through the training required. “It is no use saying you can’t attract staff and you are left to execute a programme that is very significant. Something has to be done. Some step has to be taken to address that particular problem,” she stressed.
Corbin also highlighted that most complaints to the commission relate to the non-issuance of letters to bidders who did not win a contract. This problem, she said, could easily be addressed by having a person dedicated to ensuring correspondences as required by law, were dispatched either by paper or electronically. “Some basic things are not being done and those are things that leads to complaints and perception of corruption…and they have to be addressed,” she said.
“If you have the appropriate number of staff and segregation of duties and relevant authority levels, we can reduce some of the complaints,” she added.
