2023 budget with no procurement reform

THE EDITOR: As the Joint Council for the Construction Industry (JCC) previously warned the public, the Government appears to be very comfortable bringing yet another deficit budget of $57 billion after seven years of the Procurement and Disposal of Public Property Act being introduced by the previous government.

Yet we continue to hear Prime Minister Rowley publicly berate sectors of the society with respect to corruption. Dr Rowley's rhetoric is clearly now more baseless as he has failed to ensure that procurement reform has actually taken place so far in his two-term tenure.

The Finance Minister, on the other hand, has changed his tune since passing the procurement baton to the Attorney General in March. After bellowing a new date for operationalisation every year since 2017 in his budget statement, Imbert's new narrative, for example at the Spotlight on the Economy 2022 (held on September 2), surreptitiously included a claim that the Government is getting more value for the same expenditure alluding to reduced corruption.

The JCC can find no data to support this disingenuous and insulting claim by the Finance Minister. This is the same Finance Minister who championed three amendments to the procurement legislation through both Houses of Parliament and subsequently the attendant regulations required to enable the law. The fact that the Finance Minister has taken this approach to distract the public is further evidence of this Government's resignation from not operationalising the act.

The JCC is compelled to ask both the PM and the Finance Minister just how comfortable they are with the planned expenditures listed in the 2023 budget without independent scrutiny of the procurement processes. Like $250 million for road repairs and rehabilitation to be done by PURE and $1.5 billion for the HDC. Or the $1.9 billion allocated to the Ministry of Rural Development and Local Government and $3.7 billion to the Ministry of Works and Transport.

The raison d'etre for 20 years of civil society lobbying, followed by due process to achieve procurement reform in this country, was predicated on the established fact that our current systems are largely deficient, laced with corrupt practices, and remain extremely inefficient.

The regulator (Office of Procurement Regulation – OPR) advised the Public Accounts Committee in 2020 that the operationalisation of the act had the potential to save over $5 billion per annum from reduced corruption and increased efficiency. Sadly, the Procurement Act only when operationalised would bring independent scrutiny by the OPR.

The country should not be fooled by the fact that the OPR, which was formed as prescribed under the act in the last five years, by this Government, is of any beneficial utility at this time. The fact is that the OPR has absolutely no legal right to combat corruption or inefficiency in public spending now while they continue to cost the country upwards of $17 million per annum. This simply means that as a country we can expect to haemorrhage around $5 billion of this $57 billion budget.

The JCC, therefore, reiterates its call to the Prime Minister to lean on his “new AG” to take on board the recommendations made by the OPR to him directly in July that all sections of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property Act, as amended, be proclaimed in September, save and except the following:

I Part V-Challenge Proceedings. The OPR having considered that the minister is to make regulations for the operationalisation of the review board with respect to staffing, remuneration, funding and other operational matters determine that Challenge Proceedings (sections 49-52) be proclaimed in January 2023.

ii Section 57 A. The OPR anticipates that regulations in respect of disposal of state lands subject to negative resolution of Parliament be laid by September with its passage in Parliament by December. As such, this section may be proclaimed in January 2023.

FAZIR KHAN

president, JCC