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Monday, February 24, 2025

Contractors want laws to regulate industry

by

Jesse Ramdeo
424 days ago
20231228

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior mul­ti­me­dia re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Con­trac­tors As­so­ci­a­tion, Glenn Ma­habirs­ingh, said yes­ter­day that the body would be re­new­ing its call for con­trac­tor li­cens­ing and reg­is­tra­tion leg­is­la­tion in the new year.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Ma­habirs­ingh said the pol­i­cy will help fur­ther reg­u­late the in­dus­try by pro­tect­ing in­di­vid­u­als and busi­ness­es from los­ing their mon­ey to un­qual­i­fied con­trac­tors.

Ma­habirs­ingh said more than ten years af­ter ini­tial work be­gan on a pol­i­cy to reg­u­late the in­dus­try, no fur­ther ac­tion has been tak­en.

He main­tained that the pub­lic will ben­e­fit sig­nif­i­cant­ly from the leg­is­la­tion, ar­gu­ing, "One of the ac­tiv­i­ties for the as­so­ci­a­tion for 2024, and it is not a sim­ple task, will be to re­vi­talise the ef­forts or work that was done about ten years ago re­lat­ing to reg­is­tra­tion, li­cens­ing and con­trac­tors. 

"The as­so­ci­a­tion sees this leg­is­la­tion or pol­i­cy on the reg­is­tra­tion and li­cens­ing of con­trac­tors as an im­por­tant tool to man­age the in­dus­try in terms of  en­sur­ing per­sons who are en­gaged in the in­dus­try are able to de­liv­er."

Mean­while, Ma­habirs­ingh hailed this year's procla­ma­tion of the pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion as a ma­jor boost for op­er­a­tions in the sec­tor as well as its sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

"This pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion def­i­nite­ly is a pos­i­tive for the in­dus­try. We have al­ready seen fruits of the leg­is­la­tion such as the an­nu­al pro­cure­ment plan be­ing pub­lished by the min­istries, which can be used by con­trac­tors to plan their pro­posed works for 2024."

On De­cem­ber 8, the Min­istry of Fi­nance pub­lished the an­nu­al sched­ule of planned pro­cure­ment ac­tiv­i­ties for fis­cal 2024 on its web­site.

The sched­ule in­cludes the pro­posed date for the is­sue of bid­ding doc­u­ments, the es­ti­mat­ed de­liv­ery or com­ple­tion date, the pro­cure­ment method, the stand­still pe­ri­od and the con­tract type.

The Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act was ful­ly pro­claimed in April. It aims to re­form the pro­cure­ment laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go in keep­ing with the prin­ci­ples of good gov­er­nance, such as ac­count­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy, in­tegri­ty and val­ue for mon­ey.

For­mer deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary (Ag) and per­ma­nent sec­re­tary (Ag), Bev­er­ly Khan was ap­point­ed as the pro­cure­ment reg­u­la­tor and chair of the Pro­cure­ment Board of Trinidad and To­ba­go, on June 28, 2023 for a pe­ri­od of five years.

Khan leads a board that com­pris­es: deputy chair, char­tered ac­coun­tant, Rob­by Bho­la, and mem­bers Joy Ab­dul-Mo­han; Natasha Ash­by; Fred­er­ick Bowen; Na­dine Bushell; David Charlerie; Herdis Lee Chee; Dr. An­tho­ny Lamb and Tracey Ro­jas.


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