10 major changes govt plans to make to procurement laws

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Gov­ern­ment is propos­ing sig­nif­i­cant changes to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s pub­lic pro­cure­ment regime, ex­pand­ing the cat­e­gories of State spend­ing that can take place out­side the nor­mal pro­cure­ment rules while ex­press­ly lim­it­ing what the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion (OPR) can do fol­low­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026 al­so dou­bles the ceil­ing for cer­tain sim­pli­fied pro­cure­ments, short­ens the stand­still pe­ri­od be­fore con­tracts can pro­ceed and in­tro­duces the pos­si­bil­i­ty of le­gal costs against con­trac­tors pur­su­ing chal­lenges.

The Bill con­tains ten claus­es and re­quires a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty for pas­sage.

Here are the ma­jor changes, grouped in­to three ar­eas.

MORE PRO­CURE­MENT OUT­SIDE THE NOR­MAL RULES

1. En­er­gy and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty added to ex­emp­tions

One of the biggest changes is an ex­pan­sion of pro­cure­ment that would not be sub­ject to the nor­mal re­quire­ments of the Act.

The Bill specif­i­cal­ly adds en­er­gy, in­clud­ing nat­ur­al gas and oil, and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty to the ex­emp­tions.

Cur­rent­ly: Sec­tion 7(6) al­ready con­tains ex­emp­tions, but en­er­gy and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty are not among the cat­e­gories list­ed. The amend­ment there­fore ex­press­ly places pro­cure­ment in these ar­eas out­side the nor­mal pro­cure­ment re­quire­ments.

2. Pub­lic hous­ing PPPs can al­so be ex­empt

The Bill al­so ex­empts pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships for pub­lic hous­ing.

It si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly changes the de­f­i­n­i­tion of a pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship to in­clude agree­ments, con­tracts, part­ner­ships or work­ing re­la­tion­ships be­tween a pub­lic body and an­oth­er per­son for fi­nanc­ing, con­struct­ing, op­er­at­ing or man­ag­ing pub­lic prop­er­ty.

Cur­rent­ly: The Act ap­plies to pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship arrange­ments, sub­ject to the ex­emp­tions al­ready con­tained in sec­tion 7. There is no spe­cif­ic ex­emp­tion for pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships in­volv­ing pub­lic hous­ing.

The OPR has in­ter­vened in ma­jor pub­lic hous­ing pro­cure­ment be­fore. In April, the reg­u­la­tor di­rect­ed the HDC to sus­pend its pro­posed $3.4 bil­lion De­sign-Build-Fi­nance hous­ing pro­cure­ment pro­gramme, in­volv­ing in­tend­ed awards to 11 com­pa­nies, pend­ing a re­view of the pro­cure­ment pro­ceed­ings.

Two months lat­er, the HDC can­celled the pro­cure­ment ex­er­cise be­fore any con­tracts were en­tered in­to, say­ing dis­con­tin­u­ing it was in the pub­lic in­ter­est.

3. Emer­gency pro­cure­ment gets wider ex­emp­tions

The Bill would ex­empt pro­cure­ment for wa­ter, elec­tric­i­ty and pow­er gen­er­a­tion as a con­se­quence of an emer­gency, as well as the ac­qui­si­tion of goods, ser­vices or works be­cause of an emer­gency.

For the first time in sec­tion 7, an “emer­gency” would be ex­press­ly de­fined as an ex­cep­tion­al and un­fore­see­able sit­u­a­tion where life, prop­er­ty, equip­ment or busi­ness con­ti­nu­ity is im­me­di­ate­ly at risk, or pub­lic health, wel­fare or safe­ty stan­dards must be re­stored with­out de­lay.

Cur­rent­ly: Sec­tion 7 does not con­tain this pro­posed de­f­i­n­i­tion or these broad emer­gency ex­emp­tions.

4. Fi­nance Min­is­ter can de­ter­mine ad­di­tion­al ex­emp­tions

The ex­emp­tions writ­ten in­to the leg­is­la­tion would not nec­es­sar­i­ly be the fi­nal list.

The Bill al­lows“such oth­er pro­cure­ment as the Min­is­ter may, by Or­der, de­ter­mine” to be ex­empt­ed.

Cur­rent­ly: The Min­is­ter does not have this pro­posed sec­tion 7(6)(j) pow­er to de­ter­mine an ad­di­tion­al cat­e­go­ry of pro­cure­ment un­der that pro­vi­sion.

5. $1 mil­lion sim­pli­fied sys­tem be­comes a $2 mil­lion ex­emp­tion for spec­i­fied of­fi­cials

The Bill re­places sec­tion 58A and al­lows Per­ma­nent Sec­re­taries and spec­i­fied CEOs or ac­count­ing of­fi­cers of State en­ter­pris­es and statu­to­ry bod­ies to un­der­take pro­cure­ment worth up to $2 mil­lion ex­empt from the pro­cure­ment re­quire­ments of the Act. Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tion CEOs would have a $500,000 ceil­ing. Con­tracts must still be re­port­ed to the OPR.

Cur­rent­ly: Pro­cure­ment of goods, ser­vices and works val­ued up to $1 mil­lion is gov­erned by the Sim­pli­fied Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tions, 2024, which pro­vide sep­a­rate pro­ce­dures for mi­cro and small-scale pro­cure­ment while re­tain­ing the OPR’s reg­u­la­to­ry and su­per­vi­so­ry role.

The Bill re­vokes those Sim­pli­fied Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tions en­tire­ly.

CHANG­ING THE OPR’S POW­ERS

6. In­ves­ti­ga­tions can­not be used to stop con­tracts

The Bill ex­press­ly states that, fol­low­ing a com­plaint or in­ves­ti­ga­tion un­der Part IV, the OPR can­not sus­pend or re­strain pro­cure­ment pro­ceed­ings, con­tract per­for­mance or a frame­work agree­ment.

It al­so can­not use that process to force a procur­ing en­ti­ty to re­verse or re­con­sid­er a de­ci­sion.

Cur­rent­ly: Sec­tion 44 gives the OPR pow­er to con­duct in­ves­ti­ga­tions and, at their con­clu­sion, make what­ev­er rec­om­men­da­tions it con­sid­ers nec­es­sary. It does not con­tain the pro­posed ex­press list of things the OPR is pro­hib­it­ed from do­ing fol­low­ing those in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Im­por­tant­ly, this is sep­a­rate from the OPR’s for­mal chal­lenge pro­ceed­ings un­der Part V.

7. OPR can­not or­der re-eval­u­a­tion or over­turn an award af­ter an in­ves­ti­ga­tion

The re­stric­tions go fur­ther.

Fol­low­ing a Part IV in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the OPR would be ex­press­ly pro­hib­it­ed from di­rect­ing the re-eval­u­a­tion of bids, restart­ing or ter­mi­nat­ing pro­cure­ment pro­ceed­ings, over­turn­ing or in­val­i­dat­ing a con­tract award, or de­ter­min­ing that an­oth­er sup­pli­er should re­ceive the con­tract.

Cur­rent­ly: Sec­tion 44 does not spell out these pro­hi­bi­tions. It re­quires the OPR to re­port the re­sult of its in­ves­ti­ga­tion and make rec­om­men­da­tions it con­sid­ers nec­es­sary.

8. In­ves­ti­ga­tion rec­om­men­da­tions ex­plic­it­ly be­come ad­vi­so­ry

The Bill re­moves any am­bi­gu­i­ty about the ef­fect of those rec­om­men­da­tions.

It states that an OPR rec­om­men­da­tion fol­low­ing a Part IV in­ves­ti­ga­tion “is ad­vi­so­ry” and “shall not be bind­ing” on a pub­lic body or any­one else.

It al­so can­not by it­self af­fect the va­lid­i­ty of a pro­cure­ment de­ci­sion or con­tract.

Cur­rent­ly: The law says the OPR may make rec­om­men­da­tions it con­sid­ers nec­es­sary af­ter an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, but does not ex­press­ly state that those rec­om­men­da­tions are non-bind­ing.

CHAL­LENG­ING CON­TRACT AWARDS

9. Con­trac­tors get a short­er stand­still pe­ri­od

Busi­ness­es un­hap­py with a pro­cure­ment de­ci­sion could have less time be­fore the process moves for­ward.

The Bill cuts the stand­still pe­ri­od from 10–15 work­ing days to 5–10 work­ing days.

Cur­rent­ly: Reg­u­la­tion 7 of the Eval­u­a­tion Reg­u­la­tions sets the stand­still at no few­er than ten and no more than 15 work­ing days.

The amend­ment ef­fec­tive­ly cuts both ends of that win­dow by five work­ing days.

10. Con­trac­tors chal­leng­ing de­ci­sions could face the pub­lic body’s le­gal costs

Fi­nal­ly, chal­leng­ing a pro­cure­ment de­ci­sion could car­ry an ad­di­tion­al fi­nan­cial risk.

The Bill al­lows the OPR in chal­lenge pro­ceed­ings to re­quire pay­ment of com­pen­sa­tion for le­gal costs in­curred by the procur­ing en­ti­ty in re­spond­ing to an ap­pli­ca­tion from a sup­pli­er or con­trac­tor, us­ing the pre­scribed Civ­il Pro­ceed­ings Rules costs regime.

Cur­rent­ly: Sec­tion 50(10) gives the OPR a range of reme­dies when de­cid­ing a chal­lenge, but does not con­tain this pro­posed spe­cif­ic pow­er to re­quire pay­ment of the procur­ing en­ti­ty’s le­gal costs.