Ali­cia Llanos

Had there ex­ist­ed pub­lic pro­cure­ment law the Prime Min­is­ter's stay at the Tu­na­puna home of con­trac­tor Ralph Gopaul will not be an is­sue. This is the opin­ion of con­trac­tor Emile Elias who yes­ter­day called on the Gov­ern­ment to en­act pub­lic pro­cure­ment laws to avoid such "dis­tur­bances." Elias said these laws would take pro­cure­ment out of the hands of min­is­ters and the Cab­i­net. He made the sug­ges­tion yes­ter­day while speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence held at his of­fice, Long Cir­cu­lar Road, St James.

Elias said the con­tro­ver­sy caused by the Prime Min­is­ter's friend­ship with Ralph Gopaul-whose com­pa­ny Gopaul and Com­pa­ny Ltd was be­ing con­sid­ered for a $40 mil­lion Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny (NP) con­tract-could have been avoid­ed if pub­lic pro­cure­ment laws were in place.

Elias said pub­lic pro­cure­ment laws would en­sure every­body, whether a friend of a min­is­ter or not, would have equal ac­cess to Gov­ern­ment con­tracts un­der the law. He called on the Gov­ern­ment to en­cour­age the lead­er­ship of the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) to bring to Par­lia­ment the draft law sub­mit­ted by the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil for the Con­struc­tion In­dus­try (JCC) .

Elias said pub­lic pro­cure­ment law would gov­ern the process by which ten­ders were in­vit­ed, ad­ju­di­cat­ed and award­ed in a trans­par­ent man­ner. Pressed by the me­dia as to whether he thought the Prime Min­is­ter should not have stayed at the Gopaul's res­i­dence, Elias said, he be­lieved the Prime Min­is­ter did noth­ing wrong. On the is­sue of chair­man of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion Er­ic St Cyr's ex­press­ing his opin­ion on the con­tract is­sue, Elias crit­i­cised St Cyr for his com­ments. Elias said, "I am call­ing on the Pres­i­dent to ei­ther re­move him or at the least is­sue him a stern warn­ing and to in­struct him to ex­cuse him­self from de­lib­er­a­tions in­to the mat­ter."