Chester Sam­bra­no

Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion chair­man Mooni­lal Lalchan says de­spite the readi­ness of his of­fice for the full procla­ma­tion and im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Par­lia­ment–ap­proved pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion, there re­main some hur­dles to cross.

Al­thoughs the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act, 2015 was as­sent­ed to on Jan­u­ary 14, 2015, it on­ly comes in­to op­er­a­tion on a date to be fixed by the Pres­i­dent by procla­ma­tion.

But to get to that point, pub­lic bod­ies have to be ready to com­ply.

Speak­ing at the An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing of the Trans­paren­cy In­sti­tute of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TT­TI) on Wednes­day, Lalchan ex­plained the ef­forts he and his team have been mak­ing to fos­ter com­pli­ance.

He said since Jan­u­ary 2019, they have been writ­ing to pub­lic bod­ies ask­ing them to do a readi­ness as­sess­ment.

He said out of the 415 main pub­lic bod­ies, to date, on­ly 72 have re­spond­ed to the OPR (Of­fice of the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor).

“This readi­ness as­sess­ment is a very com­pre­hen­sive check list that puts all pub­lic bod­ies in a state of readi­ness to be ready for the full procla­ma­tion,” he said.

Lalchan al­so ex­plained that since 2018, they had put out a bul­letin ask­ing the pub­lic bod­ies to ap­point a named pro­cure­ment of­fi­cer but on­ly a se­lect­ed few have com­plied.

“One of the stick­ing points re­al­ly, and I would have men­tioned it ear­ly, is the un­avail­abil­i­ty of named pro­cure­ment of­fi­cers. That is crit­i­cal be­cause that forms part of the whole in­fra­struc­ture to get this act ful­ly op­er­a­tionalised and we will be speak­ing very clear­ly to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, that has to be done as a mat­ter of ur­gency,” he ex­plained.

Lalchan did, how­ev­er, com­mend the Gov­ern­ment min­istries,, most of whom he said are prepar­ing.

Last Tues­day, AG Regi­nald Ar­mour met with the OPR and asked for them to draft a time­line of when the Act can be ful­ly op­er­a­tionalised.

Lalchan said this is be­ing worked on ac­tive­ly and will be pre­sent­ed to the AG as soon as pos­si­ble. He said they “are push­ing very hard to get it pro­claimed as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.”

He said as it re­lat­ed to the OPR, they al­ready have 1,000 con­trac­tors reg­is­tered on their data­base. He said all their data­bas­es for the full op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the Act is in place.

On Tues­day, the JCC (Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil) wrote a let­ter to the ed­i­tor ex­press­ing its dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the slow pace of im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Act.

“While the JCC is heart­ened by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s meet­ing with the pro­cure­ment reg­u­la­tor, we re­main deeply con­cerned and dis­ap­point­ed by the lack of time­lines giv­en by the AG for tak­ing his note to Cab­i­net to fa­cil­i­tate the procla­ma­tion of the new leg­is­la­tion,” JCC pres­i­dent Fazir Khan said.

One day ear­li­er, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said he too was dis­ap­point­ed that the Act is yet to be ful­ly pro­claimed but he promised this will be done soon.

“So, there’s gonna be a lit­tle de­lay. But it is not be­cause we want to de­lay it. It is be­cause we want to re­spond to what has been iden­ti­fied as pit­falls with far-reach­ing con­se­quences. And as soon as the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is in a po­si­tion to ad­dress those, he will in­form the coun­try and we will move with the rea­son­able haste to get it put on the books. That is where we are with pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion,” he said.