Shirley Gayle Sinclair, procurement specialist at the Inter American Development Bank's (IDB) T&T office says the country has come a long way in setting proper procurement standards aligned to its Public Procurement Act.
"We are optimistic, based on what we have seen, that the law will make its way through the different levels of Parliament and will be proclaimed. That is a major step in reforming public procurement in the country.
"Certainly for the projects financed by the IDB, our specific policies govern procurement and the IDB maintains monitoring and supervisory roles in all the projects and procurement processes," she told the T&T Guardian yesterday.
The IDB is partnering with the T&T Manufacturers' Association (TTMA) for a procurement fair at next month's Trade and Investment Convention (TIC). Sinclair said this will bring together the business community, manufacturers of goods, consulting firms and individuals.
She added that the IDB is taking a "trade fair approach" to its procurement seminar this year.
"As you know the Government buys a whole myriad of goods and services. We want to bring together suppliers of goods and services and put them in a place where they can interact with the buyers in our project executing agencies. The suppliers will have the opportunity to showcase their offerings. The executing agencies will have the opportunity to meet new suppliers and to showcase their projects," she said.
Sinclair said the IDB has done this before but their procurement booth at the TIC is a new format.
"In the past we have had our Doing Business with the IDB Seminar. That was a regular session and the general business community, trade missions in embassies, were invited. We brought them in and showed them IDB's policies, we showed what tools we had and procurement policies. We also showed them the do's and don't of tendering in the IDB," she said.
She said the TTMA has given the IDB tips on what companies what would want to learn at their booth.
"They said it would be useful to give presentations on how companies could give proposals, how to work with the standardised IDB document. The feedback they have is some people are not acquainted with the process," she said, adding thay the seminar will help in building public awareness of the role of transparency.
"For the IDB and in best practices for procurement, this seminar will espouse transparency, equity, fair treatment for all involved. These are clear tenets for all IDB's procurement. This is the standard, we encourage all the governments that we finance, we encourage them to reflect," she said.