Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour told the Low­er House on Wednes­day that the Gov­ern­ment is not rec­om­mend­ing that the over­sight of Par­lia­ment be by­passed as it per­tains to hav­ing a neg­a­tive res­o­lu­tion as part of the amend­ments to the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Prop­er­ty Act. Ar­mour said the pro­pos­als they are rec­om­mend­ing cre­ate a pro­ce­dure that will al­low for the ease of do­ing busi­ness.

Ar­mour added that there are pro­ce­dures in place to re­turn to Par­lia­ment if a de­ci­sion needs to be re­voked.

“There is a pre­scribed pe­ri­od of time by which and with­in which a mem­ber who thinks that, that which has been done by the statu­to­ry in­stru­ment known as a neg­a­tive res­o­lu­tion can come, move the mo­tion and call for a de­bate of the Par­lia­ment to an­nul the par­tic­u­lar in­stru­ment,” Ar­mour said.

He said the neg­a­tive res­o­lu­tion avoids the “con­vo­lut­ed pas­sage” of hav­ing to go to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate be­fore the Gov­ern­ment can take any “ex­pe­di­tious ac­tion”. He said there was the In­sur­ance Act, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty Act, The Gam­bling Gam­ing And Bet­ting Con­trol Act, and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zones Act.

“All of those are pieces of leg­is­la­tion, which em­ploy the process of neg­a­tive res­o­lu­tion, the coun­try con­tin­ues to func­tion and we are mov­ing on,” Ar­mour said.

But Op­po­si­tion MP for Barataria/San Juan Sad­dam Ho­sein said the Gov­ern­ment’s ma­jor­i­ty in Par­lia­ment negates the abil­i­ty to re­turn to Par­lia­ment to an­nul any de­ci­sions made.

“Even be­fore that in­stru­ment is neg­a­tived, and it may not even be neg­a­tived be­cause the Gov­ern­ment has the built in ma­jor­i­ty,” Ho­sein ex­plained.

“So the Gov­ern­ment will al­ways get their way with es­cap­ing from the ro­bust pro­vi­sions that are con­tained in that Pro­cure­ment Act of 2015,” he added.

Ho­sein said in 2020, there was an agree­ment for af­fir­ma­tive res­o­lu­tion based on Ja­maican leg­is­la­tion.

He then took aim at the Prime Min­is­ter, who used ex­am­ples of need­ing the amend­ments to al­low for emer­gency ser­vices as “false, mis­lead­ing, in­ac­cu­rate, un­in­formed”.

Ho­sein called on the Gov­ern­ment to read the guide­lines is­sued by the Of­fice of the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor, pro­cure­ment meth­ods and pro­ce­dure, not­ing there is a list of the var­i­ous types of pro­cure­ment which can be em­ployed for mat­ters of emer­gency

“If you look at reg­u­la­tion 12 to 15, it pro­vides the sole se­lect ten­der and what sole se­lect ten­der means you don’t have to wait two months, three months, you could do it overnight, you could do it with­in a cou­ple of hours be­cause reg­u­la­tion 12 to 14 pro­vides for emer­gency ser­vices,” Ho­sein said.