Georgetown: The Alliance Force Change (AFC) is calling on the People Progressive Party /Civic Administration to end its violation of the Guyana Constitution and do its part to establish and operationalize the Public Procurement Commission. On this single matter, the government has been in violation the Constitution since 2001, according to leader of AFC Khemraj Ramjattan.
“While the AFC has honoured its commitments under the Constitution by providing its nominees to the Commission, the government has failed to do so and we challenge the government to dispute this. We view this inaction as a deliberate attempt to delay the implementation of a robust financial architecture that will create an environment for scrutiny and transparency.”
Ramjattan explained that the establishment of the Procurement Commission with its checks and balances is in fact the foundation or a key pillar which, along with anti money laundering legislation will ensure proper financial accountability.
Meanwhile, he noted that taxpayers and the Guyanese public continue to suffer massive loss of value while they await equity, fairness and transparency in the tendering process upon the coming into being of the Procurement Commission.
“The AFC calls on all stakeholders, and most significantly the private sector leaders, to be as vocal and vigilant and vehement in demanding that the PPP/C Administration stop flouting our supreme law, (articles 212AA to 212EE of the Constitution), and show a modicum of legal responsibility in complying with this constitutional requirement.” Ramjattan stated “The non establishment and non-functioning of the Public Procurement Commission has grave accountability consequences for the public purse of Guyana. Its absence in Guyana’s financial framework has seen an unprecedented gorging at the trough by senior ranking members of Government at Central, Regional and Local levels. This absence, too, has seen the awards of contracts to friends, family and favourites of the PPP/C Government. The AFC only has to remind of the Specialty Hospital deal awarded to a company which has never built a hospital and which has been blacklisted from supplying spare parts to GuySuCo. And then again, the many awards to Queens Atlantic concerning medical supplies at above par prices, when other suppliers can supply at far more reduced prices. Only recently another example occurred at Guy Expo where the printing material contract which was awarded meritoriously to one contractor by the Guy Expo Committee, was overridden by the Minister of Tourism and handed to one who the Minister said was “supportive to the PPP during elections time”.
“The AFC sees the PPP/C Government’s conditionality of a no-objection power in Cabinet of contracts in the sum of $15M and over as wholly unacceptable and a device to continue its control of matters procurement, even after the coming into being of the Public Procurement Commission. Neither the Constitutional Amendment of 2001 nor the Procurement Act of 2003 ever intended a continuing Cabinet control. On the contrary, both these statutes expressly demanded a removal of Cabinet’s influence over procurement processes and matters. A perusal of the speeches of the Government Ministers and backbenchers as recorded in Hansard will verify this!
This is but another example where this PPP/C Government is subverting the Constitution of Guyana which its President and Ministers swore to uphold. “
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