Kamla: How many more exemptions from procurement will Government seek?

OPPOSITION Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar asked aloud on Wednesday how many more exemptions from procurement legislation would the Government seek, as she spoke in the House of Representatives on the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2023.

The bill amends the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property 2015 which the Government had previously amended by a 2020 amendment bill which excluded from the act the items legal services, financial services, accounting and auditing services, medical services, or "such other services as the minister may, by order, determine."

The bill retroactively validates the Government's spending on visits by foreign dignitaries (such as the recent Caricom summit in TT) plus funding for the judiciary under Legal Notices 206 and 164 and of 2023 respectively, exempts purchases of under $1 million from procurement law, and deems ministerial orders and procurement regulations subjected to Parliament's negative resolution.

Persad-Bissessar took issue with Finance Minister Colm Imbert having "gone around the world" in citing procurement laws from Europe and the Caribbean. Noting the Ukraine-Russia War now happening, she scoffed that if Europe was at war, did that mean TT likewise had to go to war?

Noting the exemptions in other countries cited by Imbert, she said, "Does he want to exempt all these things?

"He rattles off this long list to say 'We just exempted a few things.'"

She said over the years the Government had gradually whittled down and gutted the act, most recently by the 2020 bill.

Persad-Bissessar read aloud the list of items already exempted from regulation by both the 2015 procurement act and the 2020 amendment bill.

She quoted the 2015 act which says the requirements of certain treaties will prevail over the act, although related acquisitions must comply with the act.

These were "a treaty or other form of agreement to which TT is a party with one or more States or entity within a State, an agreement entered into by the Government of TT with an international financing institution, or an agreement for technical or other co-operation between the Government of TT and the government of a foreign State." Persad-Bissessar added national security. She said, "All these are here in our exemptions."

Saying the 2020 bill exempted legal services, she said this amounted to $1.4 billion yearly, with those attorneys getting briefs including two close relatives of the President of the Republic.

She then alluded to the current bill's shift from affirmative resolution – where proposed changes must be approved by Parliament – to negative resolution – where a proposed order would stand unless negatived by Parliament within 40 days.

"With these (existing) exemptions the minister had a blank cheque, but was subject to Parliament. Yes, the minister did have the power to exempt goods and services but subject to the check and balance of Parliament by affirmative resolution."

Persad-Bissessar chided Imbert for not telling MPs that a minister's proposal, even when subject to negative resolution, takes place immediately.

"So 40 days later you (Parliament) are coming to negative. Forty days later it has (already) taken effect and you have spent the money!"

She queried the current bill's proposed validation of "all statutory instruments" included Legal Notices 206 and 164 of 2023.

"My question: 'All statutory instruments?' Are there other statutory instruments – meaning legal notices and orders – lurking somewhere in the dark?"

Persad-Bissessar chided the Government for seeking MPs' retroactive approval for $9 million spent on the Caricom summit instead of planning this expenditure in advance. She said the Government had known about that expense beforehand as shown by a $20 million line item in a Mid Term Review dated May 5. Why had MPs been summoned from their July/August recess to the House, she asked, rattling off a list of dates of recent sittings at which the current bill could have been debated.

Questioning the Government's competence for its alleged inability to buy toilet paper under existing laws as recently voiced by Rowley, she offered to lend them Barataria/San Juan MP Saddam Hosein to help interpret the law. Hosein quipped, "I'm not going."

Persad-Bissessar laughed. She said, "There are emergency provisions within the law. You don't have to do all this tinkering. You all didn't have to do all this illegally because you have provisions in the laws of TT."

She questioned legal notice 164 for which Imbert had reportedly attributed to sequestered juries, as she cited a Newsday article that had found no cases where juries had needed to be sequestered.

Saying order 206 runs for three months, Persad-Bissessar sought details on visits by any other foreign dignitaries. She asked how much was being spent and who were the contractors. Persad-Bissessar denied the PM's claim that the government would grind to a halt as she said the act already had provisions for exigencies and emergencies.

Further, she said the procurement act already lets Government offices buy a certain threshold of regularly-used items such as stationery and toilet paper.

Persad-Bissessar hit, "We are in election period. You want blank cheque to go out there and spend money!"