The Pub­lic Sec­tor Civ­il So­ci­ety Group (PSC­SG) has called on the gov­ern­ment to give the coun­try a spe­cif­ic date when Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tions will be laid in Par­lia­ment.

“Par­lia­ment’s pas­sage of the reg­u­la­tions is the fi­nal ma­jor re­quire­ment for the full op­er­a­tionli­sa­tion of the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion,” the PSC­SG stat­ed in a re­lease.

“We have been con­tin­u­ous­ly in touch with the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor and are cog­nisant of the enor­mous work com­plet­ed to date and is aware of the in­volve­ment of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion and the Chief Par­lia­men­tary Coun­cil,” it stat­ed.

The PSC­SG shared a quote from Han­nah Arendt to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley: “Promis­es are the unique­ly hu­man way of or­der­ing the fu­ture, mak­ing it pre­dictable and re­li­able to the ex­tent that this is hu­man­ly pos­si­ble.”

The group con­sists of the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil, the Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of T&T, the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, T&T Trans­paren­cy In­sti­tute, the T&T Lo­cal Con­tent Cham­ber and the T&T Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries.

The PSC­SG stat­ed that the im­por­tance of this leg­is­la­tion comes in­to sharp fo­cus when we are forced to ac­knowl­edge the fail­ure of le­gal progress of such large pub­lic projects like the Pi­ar­co Air­port and the Sew­er Treat­ment Plant at Sea Lots.

“The move from promise to ac­tion for op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the Act is im­per­a­tive. We look for­ward to the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter ho­n­our­ing his word, giv­en sev­er­al times over, by giv­ing a spe­cif­ic date for the lay­ing and pas­sage of the Reg­u­la­tions by the Par­lia­ment,” the PSC­SG stat­ed.

The PSC­SG re­mind­ed that in every bud­get state­ment since 2017 the coun­try has been promised im­ple­men­ta­tion of “this im­por­tant piece of leg­is­la­tion.”