Renu­ka Singh

The deputy chair­man of the Of­fice of Pub­lic Reg­u­la­tions (OPR) James Chang-Kit has re­signed, cit­ing frus­tra­tion with the el­e­ments of the re­cent­ly passed Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment Bill.

Chang-Kit re­leased a res­ig­na­tion let­ter yes­ter­day say­ing the as­sent of the bill by Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes was the fi­nal in­sult to the of­fice.

The Pres­i­dent as­sent­ed to the bill on De­cem­ber 27.

“The two pri­or amend­ments in 2016 and 2017 had an ini­tial dam­ag­ing ef­fect on the re­cruit­ment process for a Reg­u­la­tor and the op­er­a­tion of the par­ent Act and sig­nalled the Gov­ern­ment’s re­luc­tance for prop­er pro­cure­ment over­sight,” Chang-Kit said.

He said there were “sub­se­quent stalling and stymy­ing” of the OPR’s ef­forts to have the nec­es­sary reg­u­la­tions pro­claimed adding that the OPR went through “in­ter­minable re­views and sub­tle at­tacks brought on by the Gov­ern­ment”.

“Via its agents in state en­ter­pris­es, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al both sub­tle and frontal, un­der­wrote its re­luc­tance for prop­er over­sight of its spend­ing,” he said.

Chang-Kit al­so took aim at the rel­a­tive “si­lence and ac­qui­es­cence of the so­ci­ety” and said that some mem­bers of the OPR board had ac­cept­ed the fa­tal­i­ty of the bill’s pas­sage.

“Some mem­bers of our board in ac­cept­ing this sor­ry state of af­fairs in a fast-dwin­dling and bank­rupt econ­o­my has dri­ven me to de­spair and so it is with a heavy heart that I sub­mit my im­me­di­ate res­ig­na­tion as the Deputy Chair­man of the Board of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion,” Chang-Kit con­clud­ed.

OPR chair­man Mooni­lal Lalchan said Chang-Kit’s res­ig­na­tion was not a sur­prise. He said his term was due to end this month.

“I don’t know if he took this op­por­tu­ni­ty to say he no longer want­ed to serve on the board. I won’t say it was sur­pris­ing or I’m shocked,” Lalchan said.

He said he was not sure what caused the strong­ly-word­ed res­ig­na­tion.

“As every­thing else, the Board is very de­mo­c­ra­t­ic, we would vote and let every­body ven­ti­late,” Lalchan said.

“We nev­er say every­one has to fol­low through like what is done in Par­lia­ment and de­bates and so on,” he said.

“Peo­ple will dis­agree and we have had very strong opin­ions on the board which we ap­pre­ci­ate, which I as Chair­man ap­pre­ci­ates,” he said.

He said that the board re­mains strong de­spite dis­agree­ments on is­sues.

Mooni­lal said de­spite Chang-Kit’s part­ing shot, the Board was not di­min­ished by the as­sent­ed bill. He does how­ev­er want to see the com­plet­ed bill.

“I can­not say what was on his mind when he is­sued that let­ter,” Lalchan said.

“Par­lia­ment has a role to play in this coun­try in terms of mak­ing laws. Once Par­lia­ment has de­bat­ed those laws and passed rel­e­vant laws, we as an or­gan­i­sa­tion are bound by law to fol­low through on the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the laws. There is a process to fol­low,” he said.

Lalchan said that the law, as it stands now with the amend­ments, still leaves the OPR in a po­si­tion to re­view and in­ves­ti­gate all the is­sues of Gov­ern­ment to Gov­ern­ment re­la­tion­ships and the whole is­sue of the amend­ment of Sec­tion 5 ex­emp­tions.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter, Colm Im­bert tweet­ed that he had “tak­en note” of Chang-Kit’s res­ig­na­tion.

“I have tak­en note of the pub­lic res­ig­na­tion of James Chang-Kit as a mem­ber and deputy chair­man of the Pro­cure­ment board 26 days be­fore his three-year ap­point­ment would have nat­u­ral­ly ex­pired on Jan­u­ary 30, 2021, with the ef­flux­ion of time. I wish him well in his fu­ture en­deav­ours,” the min­is­ter wrote.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi said he found Chang-Kit’s res­ig­na­tion let­ter to be “cu­ri­ous” and “strong­ly ob­ject­ed” to his crit­i­cisms of the 2016 amend­ment.

“I wish the gen­tle­man well. I dis­agree that the pre­vi­ous amend­ments in 2015 and 2016 emas­cu­lat­ed the OPR,” Al-Rawi said.

Al-Rawi com­plete­ly re­fut­ed that he sought to un­der­mine the OPR.

“This was no small ex­er­cise. Every sin­gle pro­cure­ment from as small as a pen must be open to chal­lenge,” he said.

“Whilst Mr Chang-Kit is free to ex­er­cise pub­lic­i­ty of his own views, I have of course don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly share his point of view,” Al-Rawi said.

“I find it quite cu­ri­ous that his let­ter of res­ig­na­tion refers to the fact of two pri­or amend­ments of 2016 and 2017. This is the first time it has ever come in­to the pub­lic do­main and I cer­tain­ly must have a very strong ob­jec­tion to his state­ment in re­la­tion to the 2016 amend­ment,” he said.