PNM sounds alarm over Govt’s plans to ‘gut’ Procurement Bill

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment is ex­pect­ed to present amend­ments to the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to­mor­row (Wednes­day), prompt­ing strong crit­i­cism from Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) MPs Stu­art Young and Do­minic Ro­main, who ar­gue the changes would sig­nif­i­cant­ly weak­en pro­cure­ment over­sight and cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for cor­rup­tion.

“This bill will par­tic­u­lar­ly emas­cu­late the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion, ren­der­ing it a tooth­less bull­dog,” said Mau­si­ca/Mal­abar MP Ro­main, a cer­ti­fied fi­nan­cial plan­ner.

Their con­cerns cen­tre on the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026, which is list­ed for de­bate in the Low­er House.

Ac­cord­ing to the bill’s ex­plana­to­ry notes, one pro­vi­sion seeks to ex­empt sev­er­al cat­e­gories of pro­cure­ment from the leg­is­la­tion, in­clud­ing mat­ters re­lat­ing to the en­er­gy and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty sec­tors, pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships for hous­ing, the pro­vi­sion of pub­lic util­i­ties dur­ing emer­gen­cies, and the ac­qui­si­tion of goods, ser­vices, or works in emer­gency sit­u­a­tions.

An­oth­er pro­posed amend­ment would sig­nif­i­cant­ly lim­it the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion’s (OPR) pow­ers when deal­ing with com­plaints and in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Un­der the bill, the OPR would be un­able to sus­pend, stay, or re­strain pro­cure­ment pro­ceed­ings, the per­for­mance of pro­cure­ment con­tracts, or the op­er­a­tion of frame­work agree­ments. It would al­so be pro­hib­it­ed from di­rect­ing procur­ing en­ti­ties on de­ci­sions or pro­ce­dures, or­der­ing the re­con­sid­er­a­tion or re­ver­sal of pro­cure­ment de­ci­sions, di­rect­ing the re-eval­u­a­tion of sub­mis­sions, or re­quir­ing the recom­mence­ment or ter­mi­na­tion of pro­cure­ment pro­ceed­ings.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the OPR would be barred from over­turn­ing, in­val­i­dat­ing, or in­ter­fer­ing with the award or per­for­mance of pro­cure­ment con­tracts and frame­work agree­ments, or de­ter­min­ing whether a sup­pli­er or con­trac­tor is en­ti­tled to a con­tract award.

An­oth­er clause states that rec­om­men­da­tions made by the OPR would be ad­vi­so­ry on­ly and not bind­ing on pub­lic bod­ies or any oth­er per­son. The rec­om­men­da­tions would al­so have no ef­fect on the va­lid­i­ty or op­er­a­tion of pro­cure­ment de­ci­sions, pro­ceed­ings, con­tracts, or frame­work agree­ments.

The bill al­so pro­pos­es to al­low per­ma­nent sec­re­taries, ac­count­ing of­fi­cers of state en­ter­pris­es and statu­to­ry bod­ies, and CEOs of mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions to ap­prove pro­cure­ment con­tracts val­ued at up to $2 mil­lion and $500,000 re­spec­tive­ly, with­out ref­er­ence to cer­tain pro­cure­ment law re­quire­ments.

An­oth­er pro­vi­sion would re­voke the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tions, 2024. Since the leg­is­la­tion re­quires on­ly a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty, it can be passed with Gov­ern­ment votes alone.

The pro­cure­ment de­bate is sched­uled for the same day the Sen­ate meets to con­sid­er the con­tro­ver­sial Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill.

Yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said since the PNM “didn’t want spe­cial op­er­a­tions,” she would al­low the mea­sure to op­er­ate on­ly in UNC-held con­stituen­cies.

Re­spond­ing, Young crit­i­cised the PM’s com­ments and ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of at­tempt­ing to di­vert at­ten­tion from the pro­cure­ment amend­ments.

“The bill seeks to re­move pro­tec­tions in the cur­rent law pre­vent­ing the UNC from award­ing mil­lion and bil­lion-dol­lar con­tracts to their fi­nanciers and friends,” he al­leged.

“The bill will per­mit the UNC to en­gage in wan­ton cor­rup­tion with­out the Of­fice of the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor, ef­fec­tive­ly gut­ting ex­ist­ing pro­cure­ment law. They in­tend to avoid pro­cure­ment over­sight and al­low per­sons to cor­rupt­ly award con­tracts and take mon­ey from the Trea­sury. Who wins apart from Kam­la’s kak­istoc­ra­cy, their fi­nanciers and friends?”

Ro­main echoed those con­cerns, de­scrib­ing the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion as “cor­rup­tion to the hilt.”

He al­so ref­er­enced re­cent com­ments by Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor Bev­er­ly Khan re­gard­ing chal­lenges fac­ing the pro­cure­ment sys­tem.

“Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor Bev­er­ly Khan re­cent­ly sound­ed the alarm con­cern­ing deep struc­tur­al is­sues that have neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed the ef­fec­tive­ness of the sys­tem. This bill would on­ly serve to ex­ac­er­bate the sit­u­a­tion,” Ro­main said.

For­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert al­so crit­i­cised the pro­posed amend­ments on so­cial me­dia.

“I can’t be­lieve we’re en­ter­ing a pe­ri­od where mas­sive mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar con­tracts will be award­ed with­out over­sight,” he wrote.

Gov­ern­ment House Leader Bar­ry Padarath did not re­spond yes­ter­day to queries re­gard­ing Op­po­si­tion con­cerns that the bill could weak­en the OPR and in­crease the risk of cor­rup­tion.