GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says the se­lec­tion of an artist to re­design the Coat of Arms was done in ac­cor­dance with the pro­vi­sion of the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Pub­lic Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act.

He said the pro­cure­ment law pro­vides very clear pro­vi­sions and reg­u­la­tions for sin­gle sole ten­der­ing in very spe­cif­ic in­stances, and Gov­ern­ment ex­pects that all State di­vi­sions will abide by the pro­vi­sions of the law.

He in­di­cat­ed this dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Par­lia­ment sit­ting in re­sponse to Op­po­si­tion queries in the month­ly seg­ment of ques­tions to the Prime Min­is­ter.

It was Row­ley’s first ap­pear­ance in Par­lia­ment for the new fifth ses­sion of the 12th Par­lia­ment. He was ab­sent from the ses­sion’s launch last Fri­day as he was in the US since Sep­tem­ber 1 for a med­ical ex­am­i­na­tion. Row­ley re­turned ear­li­er this week.

The Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor’s re­cent re­port cit­ed $5 bil­lion in gov­ern­ment con­tracts award­ed un­der sin­gle/sole se­lect meth­ods and ex­pressed con­cern about ex­ces­sive use of lim­it­ed and non-com­pet­i­tive pro­cure­ment meth­ods.

Yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion MP Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo asked the Prime Min­is­ter whether Gov­ern­ment in­tends to di­rect min­istries, statu­to­ry au­thor­i­ties and State en­ter­pris­es to utilise the com­pet­i­tive ten­der­ing award process in­stead of the sin­gle sole ten­der­ing process, “which ap­pears to be wide spread as man­i­fest­ed in the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor’s re­port.”

Row­ley replied, “The op­er­a­tive word there is ‘ap­pears’. The Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Pub­lic Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act pro­vides very clear pro­vi­sions in the act and reg­u­la­tions for sin­gle sole ten­der­ing in very spe­cif­ic in­stances.

“The Gov­ern­ment ex­pects that every min­istry, statu­to­ry au­thor­i­ty and State en­ter­pris­es will abide by the pro­vi­sions of the law.”

Cou­va South MP Rudy In­dars­ingh asked if the process used by Gov­ern­ment to se­lect artist Gillian Bish­op to re­design T&T’s Coat of Arms is in line with the Pro­cure­ment Act.

Row­ley said, “Hav­ing re­gard to Ms Bish­op’s well-known and ac­cept­ed stand­ing and stature in the pan­theon of na­tion­al artists, she was se­lect­ed to pro­vide a de­sign on T&T’s Coat of Arms to ac­com­mo­date a change with­in the tri­an­gle to re­place the Colum­bus’ ships with the steel­pan. This was done in ac­cor­dance with the pro­vi­sion of the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Pub­lic Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act.”

De­tail­ing Bish­op’s work, Row­ley said she is con­sid­ered one of the mas­ters of her art form and the Gov­ern­ment had no dif­fi­cul­ty as­sign­ing her to this par­tic­u­lar project.

On what Bish­op’s en­gage­ment will cost tax­pay­ers, Row­ley said, “With re­spect to the com­mis­sion­ing of the de­sign, we’ve not yet re­ceived the bill, but we ex­pect it will be with­in the con­text of pro­fes­sion­al ser­vice.”

As for when Bish­op will com­plete her ex­er­cise, Row­ley said, “Soon.”

‘Proud record of fair elec­tions’

Mean­while, the Prime Min­is­ter re­spond­ed to a ques­tion about whether in­ter­na­tion­al and re­gion­al ob­servers would be in­vit­ed to mon­i­tor the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.

“Notwith­stand­ing the best ef­forts of our (Op­po­si­tion) col­leagues, T&T pre­serves its proud record in con­duct­ing free and fair elec­tions.”

He said elec­tions are an­tic­i­pat­ed to be held some­time “in the not-too-dis­tant fu­ture” and can be held as late as No­vem­ber 2025.

“It’s not a mat­ter that’s be­fore us at this time and notwith­stand­ing the best ef­forts of our col­leagues and in the event of any con­sid­er­a­tion for the in­vi­ta­tion of per­son­nel/agents from the out­side, that will come in the ap­pro­pri­ate time when it is rea­son­able to have that a pri­or­i­ty,” he added.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so re­vealed the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port ter­mi­nal in To­ba­go is 74 per cent com­plete and pay­ments to date to the main con­trac­tor to­tal US$65 mil­lion.

Row­ley said the pay­ments to the main con­trac­tor don’t in­clude the land ac­qui­si­tion cost of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $300 mil­lion which was paid at an ear­li­er time.