Procurement Bill passed by one vote

THE Senate on Tuesday night passed the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property (Amendment) Bill 2020, as amended in committee stage, with the help of one Independent Senator, Dr Maria Dillon-Remy.

All eight other Independent Senators abstained.
The Opposition voted against.
The final vote was 16 for, six against and eight abstentions. The bill thus scraped through with a simple majority of the 31-strong Senate.

The Opposition has argued it actually requires passage by a special majority.
Minutes before, Dillon-Remy and Deoroop Teemal had voted with the Government on a committee-stage amendment by Finance Minister Colm Imbert. But on the vote for the third reading of the bill, Teemal abstained.

Critics of the bill complained it will exclude government-to-government and private-public partnerships from the remit of the 2015 parent act, plus the procurement of “legal, financial, accounting and auditing, medical and any other service as the minister may by order determine (subject to Parliament’s scrutiny).”