Central Tenders Board goes in one year

Speaking with reporters after a breakfast meeting at the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Commerce headquarters in Westmo-orings yesterday, Sahadeo explained that in the new system, companies would be able to approve their own contracts, but their actions would fall under the purview of an independent regulator that would be accountable to Parliament and not to the Executive.

She said deficiencies in the current public procurement system and the experiences of 2001, "when there were substantial overruns on contracts," led Government to draft a Green Paper outlining how to reform this system. This Green Paper has been laid in Parliament, put out for public comment and Sahadeo is optimistic that it would soon be turned into a White Paper and approved by Parliament. Among the deficiencies in the current public procurement system identified by Sahadeo were a weak legal framework (limited to the tendering stage of the procurement process), exclusion of several procuring agencies (inclu-ding some statutory authorities and State enterprises) from the CTB’s purview and the existence of parallel procurement systems (CTB, NIPDEC, national hospital management system, State enterprises system). "It’s (CTB) not as pervasive as we think," Sahadeo said.

She said given concerns raised by State enterprises about the current procurement system being too bureaucratic, the boards of directors of these companies would be given full authority to handle procurement matters, but would be held accountable for their actions.

Sahadeo said the independent regulator proposed in the Green Paper would not replace the CTB but will act as "a monitoring agency to ensure compliance."

According to Section 6.3 of the Green Paper, the independent regulator should be statutorily established as this would enable parliamentary oversight of its performance in keeping with Section 66A of the Constitution.