Beckles: Procurement changes weaken OPR

Akash Sama­roo

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is warn­ing that pro­posed amend­ments to the pub­lic pro­cure­ment law would re­duce the pow­ers of the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion (OPR) and give min­is­ters greater dis­cre­tion over pro­cure­ment.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Beck­les said the changes would re­sult in “more pro­cure­ment out­side the Act”, few­er pow­ers for the in­de­pen­dent reg­u­la­tor and less pro­tec­tion for sup­pli­ers.

She fo­cused par­tic­u­lar­ly on Clause 5, which would change the reme­dies avail­able to the OPR fol­low­ing a com­plaint or in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Un­der the pro­posed amend­ments, the OPR would no longer be able to sus­pend or stay pro­cure­ment pro­ceed­ings, di­rect that a de­ci­sion be re­con­sid­ered or re­versed, re­quire a re-eval­u­a­tion or ter­mi­nate pro­cure­ment pro­ceed­ings in those cir­cum­stances.

In­stead, its rec­om­men­da­tions would be ex­press­ly ad­vi­so­ry and non-bind­ing.

Beck­les point­ed to the OPR’s in­ter­ven­tion ear­li­er this year in the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion’s pro­posed $3.4 bil­lion hous­ing pro­cure­ment.

“In April, the OPR di­rect­ed the HDC to halt the award of $3.4 bil­lion in pub­lic hous­ing con­tracts while it re­viewed the pro­cure­ment pro­ceed­ings,” she said.

“We have al­ready seen why these pow­ers mat­ter.”

Beck­les ques­tioned why the Gov­ern­ment was propos­ing to re­move pow­ers that had been used in the HDC pro­cure­ment and why the pub­lic had not been no­ti­fied about the changes.

She al­so ques­tioned the role of the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee in the process.

Beck­les raised con­cerns about pro­posed ex­emp­tions from the pro­cure­ment law cov­er­ing ar­eas in­clud­ing en­er­gy, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships for pub­lic hous­ing and cer­tain emer­gen­cies.

She sin­gled out a pro­vi­sion al­low­ing the Min­is­ter to ex­empt “such oth­er pro­cure­ment as the Min­is­ter may, by Or­der, de­ter­mine”.

Un­der the ex­ist­ing law, Beck­les said, the Min­is­ter can cre­ate an ad­di­tion­al ex­emp­tion ei­ther on the OPR’s rec­om­men­da­tion or on the Min­is­ter’s ini­tia­tive with the reg­u­la­tor’s agree­ment.

“This Bill re­moves that in­de­pen­dent OPR check,” she said.

The pro­posed amend­ments would al­so in­crease from $1 mil­lion to $2 mil­lion the thresh­old for cer­tain ex­empt pro­cure­ment and re­voke the Sim­pli­fied Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tions.

“So let the pop­u­la­tion un­der­stand clear­ly what is be­ing pro­posed: more pro­cure­ment out­side the Act, few­er pow­ers for the in­de­pen­dent reg­u­la­tor, less pro­tec­tion for sup­pli­ers, and more dis­cre­tion in the hands of Min­is­ters and pub­lic bod­ies,” Beck­les said.

Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill

Beck­les al­so crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar over com­ments she made on Mon­day about the pro­posed Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that, be­cause of crit­i­cism of the leg­is­la­tion from the Op­po­si­tion and its sup­port­ers, she would on­ly al­low spe­cial op­er­a­tions in UNC-con­trolled con­stituen­cies and lo­cal gov­ern­ment ar­eas, while leav­ing PNM-con­trolled com­mu­ni­ties out of the ini­tia­tive.

Beck­les ques­tioned the Prime Min­is­ter’s role in de­ter­min­ing where spe­cial op­er­a­tions would be con­duct­ed.

“It is a glar­ing rev­e­la­tion that all along the Prime Min­is­ter wants to be­come the Com­mis­sion­er, and she should de­clare the Zones in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” she said.

The Bill pro­vides for the Pres­i­dent to de­clare closed ar­eas with­in polic­ing dis­tricts fol­low­ing an ap­pli­ca­tion from the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty.

Beck­les said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments al­so raised ques­tions about whether ref­er­ences to the Pres­i­dent in the leg­is­la­tion were ef­fec­tive­ly ref­er­ences to the Prime Min­is­ter.

She ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of tak­ing what she de­scribed as a “con­temp­tu­ous and po­lit­i­cal­ly vin­dic­tive pos­ture”.

“A Prime Min­is­ter can­not de­mand greater pow­ers while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly pre­sent­ing her­self in pub­lic as though those pow­ers are hers per­son­al­ly to de­ploy,” Beck­les said.

“This is raw po­lit­i­cal vin­dic­tive­ness dressed up as gov­er­nance.”

Beck­les end­ed by say­ing the con­duct was in­con­sis­tent with the “Love All” mes­sage the Gov­ern­ment had promised, adding: “Mouth open. To­ry jump out.”