Dominican Republic
THE government of the Dominican Republic has launched an international tender for the first phase of a new monorail line in Santo Domingo. The project is designed to ease congestion and expand capacity in the capital’s rapidly growing public transport network.
The tender, published by the Trust for the Development of the Dominican Republic’s Mass Tranpsort System (Fitram), covers engineering design, civil works, and related systems for a 10.5km line with 12 stations. Bids are due by October 23. Fitram will oversee procurement, construction and delivery of the new line.
Alignment
The first phase will run from Charles de Gaulle Avenue at the King Juan Carlos Bridge in Santo Domingo East to the Olympic Centre in the National District, providing interchange with metro lines 1 and 2. According to Fitram, the new line will serve a catchment area of more than 1 million residents and is forecast to carry 306,000 passengers daily, with an initial peak capacity of 12,500 passengers per hour per direction.
The line will initially operate with four-car trains with capacity for 562 passengers, allowing the system to carry up to 22,480 passengers per hour per direction at 90-second headways. Infrastructure is designed accommodate six-car trains in the future, increasing capacity to 34,160 passengers per hour per direction.
Future phases will extend the monorail west to Pintura, where it will connect with cable car Line 3, and to the Duarte Highway, providing an interchange with metro Line 2C at Los Alcarrizos. Together with the city’s metro and cable car lines, the monorail will form a core element of the Santo Domingo Integrated Transport System (SIT-SD), aimed at shifting over one million trips from private vehicles to public transport.
Santiago monorail
Construction of the Dominican Republic’s first monorail project, in Santiago de los Caballeros, is due for completion at the end of this year. The 13km fully automated line, which will have 14 stations, will connect the northwest and southeast areas of the city, with a fleet of 13 four-car Innovia 300 trains manufactured by Alstom in Canada.
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Jamaica
THE Public Procurement Commission (PPC) has joined forces with the National Health Fund (NHF) to train 50 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in performance-driven procurement practices.
Held at the Courtleigh Hotel under the theme “Meet the Buyer Symposium”, the session was designed to give smaller contractors a better grasp of how to navigate Jamaica’s public procurement system — an area that accounts for nearly 30 per cent of the country’s GDP but remains mainly dominated by larger, more established firms.
PPC Executive Director Nadia Morris said the training gave participants practical insight into Jamaica’s Contractor and Consultant Performance Evaluation Programme (CCPEP), which rates suppliers on contract delivery and compliance.
“As Jamaica undergoes significant, positive transformation, we can celebrate the introduction of CCPEP as an important cog in this wheel of development,” Morris said in a press release. “Let us support CCPEP and be committed to utilising it in our public sector operations. This will also set a remarkable precedence for private sector operations to utilise similar accountability strategies.”
Launched in November 2023, the CCPEP framework has already trained 205 procuring entities and onboarded 78 contractors and consultants to the PPC’s Data Visualisation and Business Intelligence Platform. The goal, Morris added, is to create a culture where strong performance directly influences future contract awards, which could open more consistent opportunities for MSMEs.
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Guyana
Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo has announced that the Guyana Government will soon be rolling out an online portal to advertise Government contracts. He believes it will be a move to improve transparency and efficiency to ensure a fairer tendering system.
At a press conference on Thursday, Mr. Jagdeo said the Government is hoping to bring more small and medium size contractors into the pool of contractors and give them an equal opportunity to be part of the tendering process. He said while the Government is expanding the system, it will be looking forward to better quality work from the contractors.
“One of the first manifestations you will see next year is a procurement website that will now advertise contractors around the country. So the current way of doing this, is that you put ads in the newspapers mainly, so in 2024 alone so the cost to the treasury of putting out those ads in the newspapers was nearly $800M that went to the newspaper and once it goes in the newspapers it disappears, people can’t see it the following day,”Mr. Jagdeo said.
On the other hand, he explained that if there is a procurement site in place, once the tender is published it will be available for the duration of the tender period as oppose to a few days like what is currently being done with the Newspapers. This he said, will ensure every person, regardless of location will be able to see the available tendering opportunities.
“We will amend the laws to ensure that happens and we will also be using an online media outfit to carry the ads because they reach more people. So, we are not going to cut out the ads totally but we are going to cut down the cost or give online media outlets that get no share of this ad, although they reach more viewers than the newspapers themselves ,” Mr. Jagdeo stated.
According to the Vice President, the move is in keeping with the President promises in his inaugural address to make the procurement system more transparent and accessible to every Guyanese.
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Jamaica
The House of Representatives, on Tuesday (June 24), approved the Public Procurement (Amendment) Regulations, 2025.
Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Hon. Fayval Williams, said the Regulations are a proactive response to Jamaica’s evolving public procurement landscape.
“They align the country’s procurement practices with international standards, improve confidence among stakeholders, and support Jamaica’s broader goals of sustainable development, institutional integrity, and fiscal prudence,” she said.
“As public procurement remains a cornerstone of national development, these reforms ensure the system is more robust, equitable, and capable of withstanding scrutiny, particularly in high stakes or emergency situations,” the Minister told the House.
Addressing the specific provisions, Mrs. Williams noted that Regulation 2C has been updated to incorporate the term ‘competition threshold’, aligning the Regulations with the terminology introduced in the Public Procurement Amendment Act.
She explained that the competition threshold enables a procuring entity to tailor the level of competition to the specific circumstances of the procurement, including the option to restrict competition based on the estimated contract value.
“It is an improvement and replacement of the term ‘procurement method threshold’. Regulation 7 has been repealed and replaced to take account of the treatment by the primary legislation of procurement in emergency circumstances, and in relation to single-source procurement. It clarifies the onus on procuring entities to satisfy themselves that value for money will be achieved before awarding a procurement contract by single-source procurement,” Mrs. Williams said.
Regulation 8 is amended to reflect the updated ‘competition threshold’ terminology and now outlines procurement methods in accordance with the thresholds detailed in Part 1 of the First Schedule, which addresses works, and Part 2, which pertains to goods and services.
The term ‘value limit threshold’ has also been replaced with ‘competition threshold’ to ensure consistency across the Regulations.
“Regulation 17 is amended to clarify that, for the purposes of assessing a bidder’s eligibility, the determination of its tax compliance is to be made on the date of the deadline for bid submissions and not the date on which the supplier submits the bid.
“The Regulation also recognises that some suppliers have no tax obligations in Jamaica or elsewhere. In those cases, once verified by Tax Administration Jamaica (TAJ), tax compliance requirements will not apply to those bidders,” Mrs. Williams stated.
Regulation 33, which addresses advance payment and security, has been repealed and replaced with clearer provisions detailing the procedures for submitting advance payment requests and the conditions under which such can be made.
Additionally, Regulation 33 now stipulates that if a contractor defaults on the completion of a procurement contract, the procuring entity reserves the right to forfeit the advance payment security in accordance with the terms outlined in the security arrangement.
“Regulation 39 is also amended to allow for shorter timeframes for bid notifications, upon request, in writing to the Public Procurement Commission. This now allows procuring entities to have greater flexibility in their bid advertisement timeline prior to that actual solicitation process, and once it is deemed necessary or properly justified,” Mrs. Williams stated.
The Minister also informed the House that the First Schedule has been repealed and replaced, and now outlines the levels of competition and corresponding procurement methods applicable to works, goods, and services.
“Take for instance, in the procurement of contracts for works, where open international level of competition may be deployed for the procurement methods, the following methods may be used: international competitive bidding, national competitive bidding, requests for proposals with consecutive negotiation, and requests for proposals without negotiation,” she said.
“Open national level of competition can be done using national competitive bidding, requests for proposals with consecutive negotiation, and the requests for proposals without negotiation procurement methods. Additionally, restricted levels of competition for works can be done through restrictive bidding with a minimum of three selected suppliers,” Mrs. Williams further stated.
She noted that these measures are expected to enhance decision-making accuracy and transactional efficiency, while upholding the principles of fair competition.
Meanwhile, Minister Williams said the Second Schedule of the Regulations has been revised to define procurement contract approval limits, now categorised into three tiers with updated contract values.
She explained that Tier 1 contracts, valued $60 million or less, require the approval of the head of the procuring entity.
Tier 2, valued at more than $60 million and up to $100 million, require the approval of both the head of the procuring entity and the Public Procurement Commission.
Tier 3 contracts, valued more than $100 million, require the approval of the head of the procuring entity, the Public Procurement Commission, and the Cabinet.
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Antigua and Barbuda
United Progressive Party (UPP) caretaker for All Saints West, attorney Harold Lovell, has joined calls in demanding the immediate resignation of the Minister of Public Works over what he describes as a massive breakdown in governance at the ministry.
The government has discovered that over $15 million was spent on vehicles without the proper authorization from the Cabinet. These purchases were reportedly made through the Ministry of Works, which is headed by the Prime Minister’s wife, Maria Browne.
Speaking on Observer radio’s Knight at Night’s program on Wednesday, Lovell said the vehicle procurement scandal demonstrates that the minister is either grossly negligent or part of the problem, and should tender her resignation.
“You’re going to tell me that you’re a minister and you have been put on the job to watch the cheese; you have been told that irregularities are taking place, look out, careful and two years later you have the scandal of scandals.
“And obviously she ought to have known and if she did not know it means that she’s not fit for the position that she’s now holding, that’s it. That’s nothing personal,” Lovell said.
He pointed out that under section 78.1 of the Constitution of Antigua and Barbuda, the minister of Public Works is required to exercise direction and control over the ministry and supervise the Permanent Secretary.
Reports are that two years ago, officials discovered problems at the ministry and claimed to have put systems in place, including requiring Cabinet decisions before vehicles could be sold to dealers.
Lovell said “when you have to resort to that, that is telling the world that you have lost control. You have lost control because a cabinet decision is an internal control mechanism.”
He stressed that ministerial responsibility demands accountability when such failures occur. He said ministers facing such scandals should not wait to be told to leave.
“When you have a breakdown of this magnitude, the minister responsible must do the honourable thing. You think the word honourable this and honourable that, honourable minister those are not just words that you just throw around, they mean something. The word honourable means something, it means you do the honorable thing.
“So, when something like this happens under your watch people don’t have to tell you to go, you do the honourable thing. You say I tender my resignation because something like this happening under your watch it shows that you are either grossly negligent or you’re part of the problem,” he said.
Lovell also criticized Prime Minister Gaston Browne’s handling of the matter, accusing him of going on his radio station to selectively present facts while shielding those he wanted to protect who were close to him. He accused prime minister of deliberately naming and shaming certain individuals without due process.
“He set himself up as the complainer. He set himself up as the investigator. He was the prosecutor. He was the judge, and he was the jury. That’s a dictatorship,” Lovell charged.
The UPP representative joined calls for a full independent public inquiry into the scandal, saying the prime minister’s one-sided approach to justice was unacceptable.
“We need to have a full investigation into this matter, and we need to expose all the real wrongdoings. We need to know the failings of the prime minister. Was it deliberate?” Lovell queried.
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