The Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil for the Con­struc­tion In­dus­try (JCC) yes­ter­day ex­pressed ex­treme con­cern that T&T's pro­cure­ment reg­u­la­tor has failed to is­sue its an­nu­al re­port, as re­quired un­der sec­tion 24 of the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act. The pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion was op­er­a­tionalised in April 2013.

In a news re­lease yes­ter­day, JCC pres­i­dent Fazir Khan, said the in­de­pen­dent re­port was due for sub­mis­sion to the Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, the Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate and the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance in De­cem­ber 2023.

He said the new pro­cure­ment law re­quires the fol­low­ing to be in­clud­ed in the re­port:

a) A fig­ure rep­re­sent­ing the to­tal val­ue of con­tracts as award­ed by pub­lic bod­ies, and an­oth­er fig­ure rep­re­sent­ing the cost of the to­tal val­ue of pro­cure­ment con­tract vari­ances for that year;

b) The num­ber of un­ful­filled con­tracts award­ed by pub­lic bod­ies in re­spect of pro­cure­ment;

c) A sum­ma­ry of trans­ac­tions in re­spect of each pub­lic body spec­i­fy­ing in re­spect of pub­lic pro­cure­ment—

(i) the num­ber of pro­cure­ment con­tracts award­ed;

(ii) the num­ber of pro­cure­ment con­tracts var­ied;

(iii) the quan­tum of those vari­ances;

(iv) the num­ber of un­ful­filled pro­cure­ment con­tracts and the quan­tum of cost in­curred;

(v) with re­spect to the pro­cure­ment for a project, a brief de­scrip­tion, the awardee, the val­ue, the scope of works and the ex­pect­ed de­liv­er­ables of the project; and

(vi) lessons learnt as a con­se­quence of the man­age­ment of pro­cure­ment con­tracts;

d) A sum­ma­ry of trans­ac­tions in re­spect of each pub­lic body con­cern­ing the dis­pos­al of pub­lic prop­er­ty—

(i) in re­spect of re­al prop­er­ty, the ad­dress and oth­er iden­ti­fy­ing de­tails of the prop­er­ty dis­posed of, in­clud­ing val­ue, to whom it was dis­posed, date of dis­pos­al, means of dis­pos­al and con­sid­er­a­tion; and

(ii) in re­spect of prop­er­ty oth­er than re­al prop­er­ty, de­tails of the prop­er­ty dis­posed of, in­clud­ing val­ue, to whom it was dis­posed, means of dis­pos­al, and con­sid­er­a­tion;

e) De­tails of changes im­ple­ment­ed to en­sure cur­rent best prac­tice for pro­cure­ment, and dis­pos­al of pub­lic prop­er­ty;

f) The names of pub­lic bod­ies that have failed to com­ply with this Act;

g) An as­sess­ment of the over­all per­for­mance of the pro­cure­ment sys­tem;

h) A sum­ma­ry of un­re­solved is­sues that are to be dealt with; and

i) any rec­om­men­da­tions re­quir­ing ac­tion on the part of a procur­ing en­ti­ty.

Khan said the re­port is there­fore sup­posed to sup­ply crit­i­cal da­ta and in­for­ma­tion to Par­lia­ment and to the pub­lic. On­ly then, said the JCC pres­i­dent, can any as­sess­ment of the ef­fi­ca­cy of the new leg­is­la­tion be de­ter­mined and ad­just­ments be made.

"This is even more dire at this time when the 2024 mid-year bud­get re­view pre­sent­ed by the Fi­nance Min­is­ter now projects a $9 bil­lion deficit," said Khan, adding that pro­cure­ment re­form is sup­posed to re­alise sav­ings in the vicin­i­ty of $4 to $5 bil­lion.

The JCC pres­i­dent not­ed that the or­gan­i­sa­tion had in­di­cat­ed to the pro­cure­ment reg­u­la­tor pre­vi­ous­ly that about 80 per cent of the ex­pen­di­ture in pub­lic pro­cure­ment is spent by on­ly 10 per cent of the ap­prox­i­mate­ly 400 pub­lic en­ti­ties. This means the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion (OPR) can con­cen­trate its re­sources on the few large spenders in or­der to have the largest pub­lic im­pact, said the JCC.

"A very dan­ger­ous prece­dent is be­ing set by the OPR in not is­su­ing the an­nu­al re­port. This does not in­stil con­fi­dence in the pub­lic and sends a bad mes­sage to procur­ing en­ti­ties that it is busi­ness busi­ness usu­al," said Khan, in urg­ing the pro­cure­ment reg­u­la­tor to is­sue the an­nu­al re­port, in com­pli­ance with the leg­is­la­tion, im­me­di­ate­ly."