Why is the Public Procurement Commission not in place?

Jun 01, 2016 News

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THE VOICE OF THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS
 
By Sase Singh
 
INTRODUCTION
The Procurement Act of 2003 is the legislative framework that establishes the rights, obligations and responsibilities of all parties in public procurement procedures. It sets out the process that can ensure that public funds are used in the most cost-effective manner.
The core tenet of the procurement laws on paper in Guyana is to encourage and stimulate competition to offer the best value for money spent, but that does not necessarily happen in reality. Unfortunately, Guyana is still to benefit fully from the letter and spirit of the procurement laws, even after a decade of its passage.

WHAT THE COALITION PLAYERS SAID THEN
Reuters News Agency quoted the then Leader of the Opposition and now President of Guyana as saying in 2015 that “…one of the first tasks of the new 65-seat legislature is the appointment of a Public Procurement Commission.”  Both the Cummingsburg Accord and the Coalition Manifesto have language with firm deadlines to reinforce the President’s commitment.
This was no political gimmick from the President because, on Page 23 of the APNU+AFC Manifesto, that document clearly states that if the Coalition gets into government one of its first acts shall be the “early appointment of Public Procurement Commission equipped with the appropriate institutional capacity”.
If that was not clarity enough, the Cummingsburg Accord between the AFC and APNU clearly stated that one of the priority areas would be “the establishment of the Public Procurement Commission….” and recommitted to such a programme of action within the first 100 days of the formation of the new government.
The Leader of the AFC, now Minister, Khemraj Ramjattan, was even richer in his language than President Granger.  On February 14, 2014, he said in the press that “to uphold the Constitution is not a compromise, but rather a sworn duty.”  He further went on to state in that article in the Kaieteur News that “every day the (then) PPP government refuses to establish the Procurement Commission, is another day for corrupt officials and contractors to continue to siphon off tax dollars”.
Minister Ramjattan said that “the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and to not establish the Procurement Commission is reprehensible”.  He also said, “the Guyanese people should not be relegated to bargaining for an agency that our Constitution clearly states shall be established”.
The Minister then stated that the AFC shall hold out that “we would like to see the Cabinet’s role in the procurement process phased out immediately”.

WHAT IS HAPPENING TODAY
It is nothing but an intellectual criminality from both the PPP and APNU+AFC, in that they collectively cannot allow for Article 212W of the Guyana Constitution to be given life, vis–à–vis the establishment of the Procurement Commission. The fact of the matter is that the appointment of the Procurement Commission starts with the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
I was advised when I was in Guyana in February 2016, that the process of submitting names to the PAC was completed, and the nation was promised that the qualifying names would be brought to the National Assembly by April 1, 2016.
The PAC under the Chairmanship of the PPP has blatantly failed to deliver on this promise, and the National Assembly is yet to obtain the nominations for consideration to serve on the Procurement Commission.
Why have these names not been submitted to the National Assembly?  Every day that passes, induces a system that provides the platform for continued corruption.  Let us not be fooled, there is still mass corruption today.
But what is even more duplicitous is that the coalition government, which has lambasted the PPP in the past for using the cabinet forum to grant no objection on big contracts, is happily continuing this non-transparent and corrupt process.  The situation is so bad that the cabinet has even granted exclusive non-competitive awards to contractors when there is no ground for doing so, on several occasions.
When will the PPP and APNU+AFC put Guyana first and get those names approved in the National Assembly?

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
Since 2003, no serious effort was made to enhance the efficient use of scarce public funds, and such a situation has directly contributed to increased levels of poverty. Our politicians on both sides of the House, remain generally uncommitted in substance, to good governance, and therefore we as a people remain castrated, as we cannot receive the best value for money spent, even today in 2016.
As a general principle, people’s access to economic and social opportunities remains closely linked to the level of progress in governance. More than 20 percent of APNU+AFC’s term has now elapsed, but we still are stuck in a mode on the public procurement front that is not grounded in transparency; a brought-forward from the PPP days.
Certainly in the year 2016, there is much room for improvement in the public procurement systems.  The spirit and intent of the law were designed to leave the procurement decisions to procurement professionals; not politicians.  However in 2016, politicians are having the final say on “who gets what” and this deeply compromises the system of securing the best value for every dollar spent in the name of the people.

CONCLUSION
It is time for the APNU+AFC government to allow good governance to take front seats in their decisions, and more pressure ought to be brought to the relevant individual(s) in order to facilitate the established Public Procurement Commission. This is the coalition’s promise and this can be their legacy.
It is nothing but public misconduct to not allow the relevant procurement capacity to be in place and in a very timely manner.  Such policy neglect will diminish Guyana’s chances at economic success and will have an adverse long-term impact, by engendering a culture of corruption, which has now transcended two different administrations.
I wonder what Minister Ramjattan must be thinking today, as he sits in a Cabinet that not only grants no-objection to procurement contracts in total violation of the Constitution, but worst of all, has issued several sole-sourcing awards that do not meet the true criteria for single source procurement?
The absence of the Procurement Commission under the Granger administration has resulted in the continuation of a system that is not fully open to an arms-length, transparent and competitive tendering process. When will the charade end?

Please feel free to share your feedback at [email protected].

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