Govt. “pussyfooting” on establishing new procurement commission—PAC Chair

Jan 04, 2022 News

Kaieteur News – “Untenable,” was the word used by Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Jermaine Figueira, to describe the slothfulness by the government to bring on stream the long overdue Public Procurement Commission (PPC).

PAC Chair Jermaine Figueira.

After months of supposed deliberations, there has been no agreement yet on the final five names of persons who will constitute the PPC—the body which exercises a major regulatory and oversight role in public procurement and the awarding of government contracts.
The PPC which monitors public procurement to ensure the principles of fairness, equity, value for money, and competition are upheld and to ensure that the procedures of public procurement are executed in accordance with the laws of Guyana, has not been in place since October 2019.
This, despite a sub-committee of the PAC was established six months ago to deal with the short listing of names but the government side is still to submit its final nominees from the shortlisted names.
At the first meeting of the PAC for the year, Figueira accused the government of stalling on the very important business of establishing of the PPC.
“Let me make it abundantly clear to this Committee that I have made strenuous efforts on numerous occasions to make contact with Madam [Gail] Teixeira so that we can bring this issue to finality. Many calls were unanswered, many texts were answered late and those proposed meetings could not have been met,” Figueira lamented.
“The Opposition is ready for this to be set up, and I strongly believe that the Government is pussyfooting around the issue, and it is time we bring this to finality and stop grandstanding around what is happening in the affairs of the People’s National Congress—that is not the government’s business. We are here at the PAC, to bring finality to the issue of appointing the Commissioners to sit on the Public Procurement Commission, what the Opposition decides is the Opposition’s business,” Figueira noted.
Earlier last year, the sub-committee, which comprises PAC Chairman and Minister of Governance and Parliamentary Affairs, Gail Teixeira, had shortlisted eight persons for PPC.
However that came six months after the sub-committee was established. The two have been reportedly meeting on finalising the names to sit on the PPC but to no avail.

and Minister of Governance and Parliamentary Affairs, Gail Teixeira.

In response to the PAC Chair, Minister Teixeira who is part of the selection committee for the PPC noted that, “the setting up of sub-committee was to not only to expedite the process but also recognise that this decision requires 2/3 of the House…”
She continued, “Figueira and I had a relationship of sharing information on what his side felt and I didn’t know that his side had a preference for anybody.”
Given the questions surrounding the delays of appointing the new PPC, PAC member and Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill proposed that the meetings should be made public.
“That is backroom work, why are we doing this in committee today? I would like to recommend that the sub-committee does its work out of the public’s eye,” Edghill told the PAC yesterday.
“It is kind of baffling and worrisome that the country is calling for the establishment of the Public Procurement Commission and we seem to be lagging in my view… I want to disassociate myself from any attempt to stymie the establishment of the PPC,” he added.
Edghill was also among those, who claimed that the government is ready to move the process forward but contends that it is opposition members of having an attitude of bullyism that is hampering the process.