Independent senator criticises new Procurement Bill

INDEPENDENT Senator Charrise Seepersad spoke against the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2023 as watering down TT's procurement legislation, addressing the Senate on Thursday.

Rather than the bill altering the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property Act 2015, she said bodies in the public sector "must up their game."

Seepersad said that for the bill to give the Finance Minister sole responsibility would contradict the act's goal of accountability.

She calculated that a fully working act could save the State $3-$9.2 billion from corruption, based on data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation.

Seepersad said it was not flattering that the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index had ranked TT as the 77 best country out of 180 countries, with TT's score of 42 on a scale from zero (very corrupt) to 100 (very clean).

She said 20 per cent of TT businesses surveyed had told TI of paying bribes for critical services. A 2019 report by the Development Bank of Latin America had found TT ranked worse than the regional average for incidents of bribery, she added.

"The economy can only survive and grow if the waste is diminished and eventually eliminated altogether.

"Procurement regulation therefore must not be diminished or watered down for the sake of convenience and expediency.

"Further, giving a minister sole responsibility for seeking the public's interest – as far as these amendments are concerned – is contradictory to what the act seeks to accomplish – transparency in public affairs."

She feared the bill would render the Office of Procurement Regulator redundant.

Seepersad lauded the 2015 act for putting all public spending under the oversight of the Office of Procurement Regulator who himself must report to Parliament for scrutiny within 90 days of the end of a financial year.

"This, I am convinced, is an important tool in the fight against corruption and crime, and seeks to mitigate the instances of decades of questionable procurement practices."

Good procurement laws were in the public's best interest, she said, and must stand up to global scrutiny and procurement standards.

Seepersad said that would go a long way to keeping public officers accountable.

Regarding the bill's proposal of exemptions of up to $1 million, she warned, "There are no measures to prevent the splitting of contracts."

Seepersad warned against comparing other countries to TT.

"Countries such as Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and Europe have threshold limits but these countries do not have the same level of corruption that exists in TT.

"It is a well-known and common practice for contracts to be broken up into smaller packages to avoid tender requirements."

Seepersad suggested that companies had no excuse for not registering at the OPR as required under the act.

"I did the registration and it was not complicated. You just have to be organised." She recalled all the help offered to firms by the OPR and agencies such as WASA.

She said for upcoming events such as summits, agencies must prepare themselves ahead of time.

Seepersad questioned the bill's proposal to retroactively validate two legal notices for spending on foreign dignitaries and the judiciary.

She read out the proper procedure as required by the 2015 act.

"Can the Minister of Finance explain why the Government did not comply with these requirements?

"We need to be provided with a comprehensive, detailed explanation of the expenditures that we are being asked to approve through these two legal notices.

"The amendments to this bill only serve to further undermine the objectives of the procurement act, which as a reminder I will repeat: accountability, integrity, transparency and value for money."

The original act promoted transparency and reduced corruption in public spending.

"The Government has a fiduciary duty as the trustee of the public funds. These amendments endanger their stewardship and oversight of public funds."

She said she had laboured to find some rationale to support the proposed bill. "However in the interest of the public I find it very difficult to support this bill."