Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion MP Stu­art Young has ac­cused the Min­istry of the Peo­ple of fail­ing to com­ply with the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act by not post­ing in­for­ma­tion on se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices ten­ders on its web­site, de­spite claims to the con­trary by Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple Van­dana Mo­hit.

The ex­change took place dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee’s ex­am­i­na­tion of the min­istry’s 2026 ex­pen­di­ture.

Mo­hit told the com­mit­tee that ten­ders were in­vit­ed for se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices in the last fis­cal year and that the in­for­ma­tion had been pub­licly post­ed on­line. Young re­spond­ed that checks of the min­istry’s web­site showed no such post­ing.

“I was told, in no un­cer­tain terms, that it was on the web­site. But if you check right now un­der ‘Pro­cure­ment and Ten­ders,’ there’s ab­solute­ly noth­ing about the pro­cure­ment of se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices—on­ly a list­ing for a high-se­cu­ri­ty fence,” Young said.

He ques­tioned whether Mo­hit had been giv­en in­cor­rect in­for­ma­tion, point­ing out that sev­er­al oth­er ten­ders were vis­i­ble on­line. “So where is the se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices ten­der?” he asked.

Mo­hit said she was ad­vised that the ten­ders were post­ed when first ad­ver­tised. “It was ten­dered in the pre­vi­ous fis­cal year and was ad­ver­tised then,” she said.

But Young ar­gued that this did not meet the re­quire­ments of the law. “That’s not how the act works. It’s not just about post­ing—it must al­so show where the ten­der is in the process, who was award­ed the con­tract, and oth­er de­tails. None of that is on the web­site,” he said.

The ex­change grew tense when Mo­hit claimed the ten­ders were is­sued un­der the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion. “So you didn’t put it on the web­site,” she told Young.

How­ev­er, Young coun­tered that the ten­ders had clos­ing dates in 2024. “So no work is be­ing done by the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment,” he added.

In re­sponse to ques­tions from Diego Mar­tin North/East MP Colm Im­bert, Mo­hit lat­er ad­mit­ted she had been ad­vised that no up­dat­ed sta­tus re­port on the ten­ders had been pub­lished. (GA)

Young al­so ques­tioned sev­er­al ex­pen­di­ture items in the Min­istry’s 2026 bud­get, in­clud­ing $275,000 for “brochures and oth­er ma­te­ri­als” re­lat­ed to out­reach pro­grammes.

“Who is the print­ing com­pa­ny? May I ask for a writ­ten list­ing of who is do­ing the pub­lic­i­ty, pro­mo­tion, and print­ing for the Min­istry, and the con­tracts award­ed to them?” Young asked.

He al­so pressed Mo­hit to ex­plain a $737,300 in­crease in short-term em­ploy­ment, claim­ing that “nor­mal re­cruit­ment pro­ce­dures” were be­ing by­passed.

“We are be­ing told by pub­lic ser­vants, in­clud­ing those in your Min­istry, that hu­man re­source de­part­ments are be­ing by­passed and in­struc­tions are be­ing giv­en as to who should be hired,” Young said.

Mo­hit firm­ly de­nied the al­le­ga­tion. “No—a big ‘no’ to that. None of what you’ve stat­ed is hap­pen­ing at this min­istry,” she replied.

Young fur­ther ques­tioned whether an ex­pand­ed $1.4 mil­lion al­lo­ca­tion for cost-of-liv­ing al­lowances was linked to re­cent­ly ad­ver­tised job va­can­cies un­der the Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice.

Mo­hit said those po­si­tions were not part of the min­istry’s re­cruit­ment dri­ve and fell un­der the re­mit of the Ser­vice Com­mis­sions De­part­ment.

Young al­so queried a $3 mil­lion al­lo­ca­tion for tele­phone ex­pens­es, not­ing that the fig­ure in­clud­ed a $667,600 in­crease.

“At a time when tele­phones are be­com­ing ob­so­lete, why is there such an in­crease?” he asked.

Mo­hit said the min­istry set­tled $1 mil­lion in ar­rears in 2025 from a to­tal of $2.7 mil­lion owed.

She al­so ex­plained that re­duced al­lowances were due to the de­par­ture of one Deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary, al­though the Min­istry—now with two Per­ma­nent Sec­re­taries—has tak­en on ad­di­tion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

Young ques­tioned whether the loss of a deputy was af­fect­ing op­er­a­tions. “Is that why cheque ma­chines aren’t work­ing and peo­ple are get­ting paid late con­sis­tent­ly? Has the ad­min­is­tra­tion fall­en apart in your min­istry?” he asked.