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Govt. raises tender threshold for ministries, state agencies
The National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) has announced adjustments to thresholds that will allow ministries and state agencies to spend more without going to that body.
According to a circular issued Monday, February 4, Deputy Chairman of NPTAB, Mark Bender disclosed that there are “New thresholds for Restrictive Tendering and Request for Quotations Methods of Procurement”.
The new changes will see the thresholds for goods and services at $10M, while the limits for contracts for construction will be $20M.
The threshold for Request for Quotations method of procurement is now $3M.
Previously, in contracts for goods and services, ministries and state agencies could have only internally approve up to $3M while the limit for construction contracts was $10M.
The limit for Requests For Quotations was $1.5M.
According to Bender, in the circular to Permanent Secretaries, Agencies, Corporation Heads and Regional Administrations, the new thresholds take immediate effect.
The idea is to reduce the bottlenecks that come with contracts that sometimes have to wait months to be awarded because the ministries and agencies don’t have authorization.
However, the Opposition is wary of the decision to raise the threshold.
According to Juan Edghill, a former Junior Finance Minister under the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), he has information that the Government has “illegally facilitated and created the architecture to corruptly award contracts to friends and family by way of arbitrarily amending the Public Procurement Act subsidiary legislation Chapter 73:05 (Regulations 9 of 2004).
“This action enables award of contract without public advertisement, by way of restricted tendering and subverts the use of qualifications for this procurement process to be confined to specialized services or procurement of highly-complex items as stated in 26 (1) (a) of the Procurement Act of 2003.
Opposition MP Juan Edghill
The threshold catered for in 26(1) (b) of the Procurement Act has been increased, Edghill said in a statement.
“In layman’s terms, the action has made it possible to give contracts to unqualified persons and companies for the procurement of Goods and Services from $3M to $10M (233%), which was already increased when this APNU/AFC came into office and for construction from $10M to $20M (100%) and the three quotation system from $1.5M to $3M (100%).”
According to Edghill, this development would have come one month after the Coalition Government was “defeated” by way of the successful no confidence vote on December 21, 2018. “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 stands resigned. Therefore, they are merely in office in a caretaker capacity and as such, these actions are unconstitutional.”
He said that the letter by Bender is illegal and will lead to criminal proceedings being instituted against public officials who may be tempted to act on such a directive, which is illegal.
“It can only be concluded that this decision is to facilitate corruption, cronyism and nepotism, by way of handpicking friends and cronies and awarding them contracts. This is a blatant political scheme to buy votes and especially pilfer the public purse and to enrich officials of the APNU/AFC over the few remaining days in office ahead of the March 19, 2019 General elections, which will see a change in government.”
Edghill said that public officers and heads of budget agencies are forewarned, “to keep notes, log all correspondences given and be reminded that as accounting officers, they will be held responsible for any unapproved spending of the public’s money. Beware for whom the bell tolls, for it tolls for thee.”
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