The regulator working to bring the Public Procurement Act into force hopes it will be fully proclaimed by the end of the year, long before the general election in 2020.
Moonilal Lalchan, chairman and procurement regulator at the Office of Public Procurement which is charged with drafting the regulations needed to bring the law into force, gave an update on the status of the regulations at a special general meeting of the Trinidad and Tobago Transparency Institute on Tuesday evening at the Fernandes Compound on the Eastern Main Road, Laventille.
Lalchan said he is hopeful the stated intentions of Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley to have the regulations passed in Parliament by December will become reality.
“Everything is lined up, just waiting for the final [approval],” Lalchan said.
The Public Procurement Act was passed in December 2014, but the act has been proclaimed in phases because regulations must be written and submitted to the Ministry of Finance for approval before being passed in Parliament.
Lalchan said without proclamation, the Office of Public Procurement is unable to investigate allegations of impropriety in the tender evaluation process for State contracts or require pre-qualification of all contractors and service providers who receive public funds.
He said the Office of Public Procurement has “gone through pains” to draft all the regulations and complete the handbooks that prescribe how public bodies should contract goods and services and dispose of public property.
Lalchan said his office submitted all remaining documents to the Ministry of Finance on September 2. He said Finance Minister Colm Imbert assured him the documents would be presented to Cabinet last Thursday and would make their way into Cabinet’s Finance and General Purposes Committee on Monday.
Lalchan said his staff has met with most of the 150 organisations that fall under the ambit of the act, but he singled out two front line ministries - the Ministry of Housing and the Ministry of Planning - as having made no overture to meet with the regulator.
“We are now in the process of reaching out to them (the ministries of housing and planning) and insisting that we must meet with them,” Lalchan disclosed.
“We will make sure that we push on that side.”
Speaking generally about the response from State agencies, he said, “I can tell you that a number of organisations who legitimately supposed to fall under the act is trying all sorts of a reasons [sic] why they can’t fall under the act and they’re seeking all sorts of a legal interpretation etc., and every single one that has sought legal interpretation - legal (unit) told them ‘you fall under the act.
“The question from our point of view is, ‘Why wouldn’t you want to fall under the act? What it is you trying to hide?’
He said these entities are now on a “high priority list.”