Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee says the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed changes to the coun­try’s pro­cure­ment laws are not an at­tack on the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion (OPR) or ret­ri­bu­tion for its in­ter­ven­tion in a con­tro­ver­sial $3.4 bil­lion HDC pro­cure­ment ex­er­cise, but are in­tend­ed to al­low the State to de­liv­er goods and ser­vices to cit­i­zens faster.

The Gov­ern­ment will take the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026 to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to­day, amid grow­ing crit­i­cism from the Op­po­si­tion over pro­posed changes to the pow­ers of the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor and ex­emp­tions un­der the Act.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Lee re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that the amend­ments were aimed at weak­en­ing the OPR.

“No, this is not an at­tack on the OPR. This is about gov­ern­ing the coun­try,” Lee said.

“A lot will be said to­mor­row in the de­bates. So, I ask you all to have some pa­tience and a lot more will be said in the de­bate.”

Ear­li­er, while speak­ing at the me­dia view­ing of the HDC’s Canopies at Cau­ra hous­ing de­vel­op­ment, Lee linked the amend­ments di­rect­ly to the Gov­ern­ment’s abil­i­ty to de­liv­er on its man­date.

He said with more than 100,000 peo­ple on the HDC’s wait­ing list, the Gov­ern­ment could not al­low un­nec­es­sary de­lays to pre­vent it from de­liv­er­ing homes.

“We have a man­date led by the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter, the Ho­n­ourable Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, to de­liv­er homes for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Lee said.

“And we will not play pol­i­tics in de­liv­er­ing homes for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

He de­scribed the pro­cure­ment amend­ments as “crit­i­cal” not on­ly to hous­ing de­liv­ery but to “de­liv­er­ing prop­er gov­er­nance.”

Lee was al­so asked whether the amend­ments were con­nect­ed to the OPR’s in­ter­ven­tion in the HDC’s $3.4 bil­lion de­sign-build-fi­nance hous­ing pro­cure­ment pro­gramme ear­li­er this year.

The reg­u­la­tor in­ter­vened in April and di­rect­ed the HDC to sus­pend the process pend­ing a re­view. The HDC even­tu­al­ly can­celled the pro­cure­ment ex­er­cise in June.

Lee de­nied there was any con­nec­tion.

“No, no. This is about gov­er­nance, as I keep say­ing, gov­er­nance for the peo­ple to de­liv­er at a faster rate,” he said.

“We are in gov­ern­ment now 18-plus months, go­ing on 19, and we have a man­date to de­liv­er un­der the Min­istry of Hous­ing, de­liv­er homes for the peo­ple of Trinidad.”

Young: Worse than Sec­tion 34

But Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West MP and for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young is sound­ing the alarm over the pro­posed changes, com­par­ing them to the con­tro­ver­sial Sec­tion 34 leg­is­la­tion of 2012.

“The UNC Gov­ern­ment has put for­ward for de­bate to­mor­row in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives a Bill that is worse than Sec­tion 34,” Young said.

He ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of seek­ing to “to­tal­ly gut” the pow­ers of the OPR and al­leged that the changes were in­tend­ed to fa­cil­i­tate cor­rup­tion.

Young point­ed specif­i­cal­ly to pro­posed changes af­fect­ing ex­emp­tions, the stand­still pe­ri­od be­fore con­tracts can pro­ceed and the pow­ers avail­able to the reg­u­la­tor fol­low­ing com­plaints and in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“They have short­ened the time frame for stand­still, and the worst part of it, or one of the worst parts, if not the worst part, is they have gut­ted the pow­ers of the OPR,” Young said.

“So the OPR can­not sus­pend if you com­plain, they can­not stop a process, etc. They say, well, you could on­ly rec­om­mend.”

Al-Rawi: OPR re­duced to ad­vi­so­ry role

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor and for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi al­so crit­i­cised the amend­ments, ar­gu­ing that they would sig­nif­i­cant­ly change the reg­u­la­tor’s abil­i­ty to in­ter­vene.

“What the Prime Min­is­ter has done, or the Gov­ern­ment has done, is to say, you know what, we’re gonna take away the pow­er of the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion,” Al-Rawi said.

“They will now be ad­vi­so­ry. Noth­ing that they say will mat­ter. They can no longer stop pro­cure­ment that is wrong.”

Al-Rawi al­so raised con­cerns about pro­vi­sions deal­ing with pub­lic-pri­vate arrange­ments in­volv­ing land and the pro­posed abil­i­ty of the reg­u­la­tor to award costs in chal­lenge pro­ceed­ings.

He ar­gued that the prospect of costs could dis­cour­age peo­ple from chal­leng­ing pro­cure­ment de­ci­sions.

“So where­as the OPR was orig­i­nal­ly de­signed to be a mech­a­nism you could go and chal­lenge with­out hav­ing to have deep, deep, deep fi­nan­cial pock­ets and re­sources to go to court, now they’re say­ing... if you dare to come to the OPR... you are gonna have to pay costs on the same lev­el as the High Court,” Al-Rawi said.

The Bill is sched­uled for de­bate in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to­day.