The Gov­ern­ment’s re­call­ing of the Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day to amend the pro­cure­ment law is nec­es­sary or else that law’s com­pli­cat­ed process­es, which make even ac­quir­ing toi­let pa­per lengthy, could see its op­er­a­tions grind to a halt.

“We have to run the Gov­ern­ment ahead, so (on Thurs­day) I’ve di­rect­ed the Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to re­call Par­lia­ment next Wednes­day,” Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley told sup­port­ers on Thurs­day while ad­dress­ing a PNM cam­paign meet­ing in Tu­na­puna.

He said that the Gov­ern­ment had re­alised there were is­sues in the law and he had in­struct­ed that Par­lia­ment be re­called from its cur­rent mid-year break. Row­ley said the Gov­ern­ment would use its ma­jor­i­ty to make sen­si­ble amend­ments to the law so it can func­tion in the pub­lic’s in­ter­est.

Last Sun­day, UNC MP Sad­dam Ho­sein called out Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert on an ex­emp­tion or­der from the pro­cure­ment law on costs as­so­ci­at­ed with the vis­its of for­eign dig­ni­taries for three months.

Im­bert de­fend­ed the or­der–and an­oth­er for the Ju­di­cia­ry is­sues–say­ing it was nec­es­sary for the Cari­com sum­mit to be held and lament­ed the law’s lengthy process­es. The Op­po­si­tion in­tends to seek le­gal ac­tion on the is­sue.

Row­ley on Thurs­day said the Gov­ern­ment went to Par­lia­ment twice to try mak­ing the law more us­able and prac­ti­cal but the Op­po­si­tion ac­cused them of “wa­ter­ing it down”.

He said the Op­po­si­tion de­mand­ed procla­ma­tion and while the Gov­ern­ment could not get it to a point of be­ing work­able by March, in re­sponse large­ly to pub­lic de­mand, “We said we’ll pro­claim it, but we know we have to re­turn to Par­lia­ment to make cer­tain ad­just­ments.”

Row­ley said the Gov­ern­ment could not now do any busi­ness with any­body with­in two months in most cas­es, since it in­volved is­su­ing ten­ders, await­ing re­sponse for a month, then un­der­tak­ing eval­u­a­tion and ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee process­es.

“And that doesn’t dis­tin­guish be­tween a bale of toi­let pa­per, a case of wa­ter, and a high­way–now sure­ly that isn’t the law we re­al­ly want. The oth­er day we want­ed to buy a cou­ple dozen flow­ers to put in front of the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre to pre­pare for our guests but we couldn’t do that be­cause the process didn’t al­low it with­in two to three weeks and many small and medi­um busi­ness­es haven’t been reg­is­tered,” Row­ley added.

He said un­less peo­ple are reg­is­tered with the Of­fice of the Pro­cure­ment Repos­i­tor, have tax cer­tifi­cates up to date, and have NIS cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, they can’t do busi­ness with the State. He not­ed NIS cer­ti­fi­ca­tion ex­pires in 30 days and pro­cure­ment process­es take 50-60 days. “So what kind of sit­u­a­tion is that? We have to come back to the Par­lia­ment to amend it.”

Row­ley cit­ed sit­u­a­tions where ur­gent needs are in­volved and would re­quire an ex­emp­tion or­der, but one had to go to Par­lia­ment for that.

“So if I dis­cov­er the toi­let has no pa­per and we need a bale, it’s a big min­istry and in the two months it’ll take to get the item, I pre­sume you could bring a roll of pa­per from home. But that’s on­ly toi­let pa­per. There are oth­er things you can’t bring from home.”

Cit­ing Op­po­si­tion in­sis­tence on the process­es, he not­ed, “They very well know what they’re do­ing, they know if we don’t amend the law and put sen­si­ble arrange­ments in place it’ll grind the Gov­ern­ment to a halt and that’s what they want!”

Not­ing the Op­po­si­tion Leader wants to lead a le­gal team to chal­lenge “the er­ror in the law which caused Fi­nance (Min­istry) to use the ex­emp­tion or­der”, he added, “If you want to go to the court to clar­i­fy it, no prob­lem, we’re a civilised coun­try and the court will rule.”

The PM said, “In the mean­time, the Gov­ern­ment has sought deep­er ad­vice and that arrange­ment can­not be al­lowed to stand be­cause the Gov­ern­ment won’t be able to func­tion.”