Transparency Institute warns procurement bill weakens oversight

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Trans­paren­cy In­sti­tute (TT­TI) is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to pause pas­sage of the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026, ar­gu­ing that the pro­posed changes would widen ex­emp­tions and weak­en in­de­pen­dent over­sight.

TT­TI said the Bill would ex­empt pro­cure­ment in­volv­ing en­er­gy, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and pub­lic hous­ing de­vel­oped through pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships from the Act, with­out spend­ing lim­its or an emer­gency re­quire­ment. It al­so said the Bill would broad­en the de­f­i­n­i­tion of emer­gen­cies to in­clude risks to busi­ness con­ti­nu­ity.

The in­sti­tute said the Bill would re­move the re­quire­ment for min­is­te­r­i­al ex­emp­tions to have the rec­om­men­da­tion or agree­ment of the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion (OPR).

It al­so raised con­cerns about pro­posed changes to the OPR’s pow­ers, say­ing the reg­u­la­tor would be able to in­ves­ti­gate pro­cure­ment com­plaints but would no longer be able to pause a pro­cure­ment, or­der a re-eval­u­a­tion or can­cel an award. Its find­ings would in­stead be ad­vi­so­ry.

TT­TI al­so ob­ject­ed to re­plac­ing the 2024 Sim­pli­fied Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tions for small­er pur­chas­es. Un­der the pro­posed changes, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­taries and heads of State bod­ies could make pur­chas­es of up to $2 mil­lion, while mu­nic­i­pal CEOs could make pur­chas­es of up to $500,000, out­side the Act, with re­port­ing to the OPR af­ter the con­tract is award­ed.

The in­sti­tute said the pe­ri­od for busi­ness­es to chal­lenge pro­cure­ment de­ci­sions would al­so be re­duced from 10–15 work­ing days to five–10 work­ing days, while busi­ness­es could face State le­gal costs for bring­ing chal­lenges.

TT­TI said the changes, tak­en to­geth­er, would shift the pro­cure­ment sys­tem away from pre­ven­ta­tive over­sight to­wards re­port­ing and reme­dies af­ter de­ci­sions have been made.

It is call­ing for con­sul­ta­tion with the OPR, civ­il so­ci­ety and busi­ness­es on the caus­es of pro­cure­ment de­lays and pos­si­ble reme­dies.

The in­sti­tute al­so wants nar­row­ly de­fined ex­emp­tions with in­de­pen­dent over­sight, re­ten­tion or re­place­ment of sim­pli­fied pro­cure­ment rules, stronger cor­rec­tive pow­ers for the OPR, prompt pub­li­ca­tion of ex­empt con­tracts, doc­u­ment­ed jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for emer­gency pro­cure­ment and im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Whistle­blow­er Pro­tec­tion Act.

TT­TI said pro­cure­ment rules were nec­es­sary to pro­tect pub­lic funds and en­sure that con­tracts and gov­ern­ment de­ci­sions could be scru­ti­nised.