Georgetown: Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo, is calling on public officials not to honour the instructions of the circular issued Monday, February 4, 2019, by Chairman of the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board, which listed higher threshold for tenders.
The circular from the board Chairman, Mark Bender, disclosed that there are “New Thresholds for Restrictive Tendering and Request for Quotations Methods of Procurement”.
The new charges disclosed that the thresholds for goods and services moved from $3M to $10M, while the limit for contracts for construction moved from $10M to $20M and the threshold for Request for Quotations method of procurement moved from $1.5M to $3M.
Jagdeo said that the circular, sent out to Permanent Secretaries, Agencies, Corporation Heads and Regional Administrations, is not valid, since it was sent out under the purview of a caretaker government.
He said that there is a protocol set out by the Public Procurement Act, for the raising of the tender threshold.
He further warned that officials who abide by the new terms set out in the circular cannot claim that they didn’t know in the future, because the PPP is now making its position on this matter explicitly clear.
First of all, he explained that the Act allows the National Board to raise the threshold pending the establishment of the Public Procurement Commission (PPC). Given that the Commission is already in existence, he said that only one aspect of the Public Procurement Commission Act (Section 54 [1]) speaks explicitly about the raising of the threshold.
It states, “The Cabinet shall have the right to review all procurements, the value of which exceeds fifteen million Guyana dollars. The Cabinet shall conduct its review on the basis of a streamlined tender evaluation report to be adopted by the [National Board].
“The Cabinet and, upon its establishment, the Public Procurement Commission, shall review annually the Cabinet’s threshold for review of procurements, with the objective of increasing that threshold over time so as to promote the goal of progressively phasing out Cabinet involvement and decentralizing the procurement process.”
Jagdeo said that the Cabinet and the Public Procurement Commission should annually review the thresholds, not the minister.
He stated, “There is no Cabinet. The Cabinet was resigned [when the No Confidence Motion was carried], so that leaves only the Public Procurement Commission, and that that Commission has not met on this matter. So [Minister of Finance, Winston] Jordan acted illegally when he acted on the advice of the board that he controls, which, in itself, is complicit with tons of wrongdoings. [Those wrongdoings] will be revealed later.”
The leader of the Opposition said he noticed that even the Chairman did not sign on the circular, and called on the Public Procurement Commission to look into the matter immediately.
The PPP, Jagdeo said, will write the PPC and will probably write the police too, on this matter.
“And Jordan will have a lot to answer for, in the future, because of this illegal act. Anyone who complies with this illegality will have to answer for that too.”
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