The Government of Saint Lucia (GOSL) has received financing from the World Bank toward the Health System Strengthening Project, and intends to apply part of the proceeds for consulting services for engagement of a Procurement Specialist to manage and oversee procurement activities for the implementation of the Saint Lucia Health Systems Strengthening Project.
The consulting services (“the Services”) include
- Procurement Planning
- Bidding Process
- Monitoring and Evaluation
- Reporting
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The Government of Saint Lucia (GOSL) has received financing from the World Bank toward the Health System Strengthening Project, and intends to apply part of the proceeds for consulting services for engagement of a Financial Management Specialist to maintain the financial management system for the Project.
The consulting services (“the Services”) include
- Budgeting and Planning
- Expenditure/Payment Processing
- Monitoring
- Financial Reporting
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The Government’s planned electronic procurement and supplier registry will create “fairness, equity and equal access” in bidding on public contracts, the deputy prime minister said yesterday.
KP Turnquest, pictured, addressing a seminar on the e-procurement and supplier registry, said it will help to level the playing field between small, medium and large businesses and ensure a minimum 20 percent of all government contracts go the former category.
“I know that for most businesses in The Bahamas that I have come across, one of the things that they have been concerned about is fairness and access,” said Mr Turnquest.
“We know how it worked in the past, where if your party is in power you get the contracts, and when your party is not in power you’re out of luck. This system seeks to try to create some balance, some equity and fairness across the system, so that we can take out these kinds of bias.
“If we allow the system to work the way it has been designed to work, it is going to create equity and it will result in savings and GDP business growth for all Bahamians.”
Mr Turnquest said the recently-launched Small Business Development Centre will aid the Government’s goal of ensuring public sector contracts are more widely spread among the business community.
“I think we all know that there are those entities who, because of their resources, have been able to corner the market on procurement and economic activities in this country,” Mr Turnquest said.
“Through the efforts of the Small Business Development Centre, we are hoping to empower the ordinary Bahamian who doesn’t have a rich parent or some connected source [so] that they will be able to obtain the kind of support and resources that will allow them to enter the mainstream and compete with the ‘big boys’ and the legacy institutions.
“That is very important. Because as we move into a more modern society, and as we have more and more of our young people coming into the sector with very high expectations, it is important that they have an opportunity to compete and fulfill their visions without unfair bias. So, we are extremely happy with what the Small Business Development Centre is doing, particularly in Grand Bahama.”
Mr Turnquest said the Ministry of Finance has spent months engaged in a reform effort to transform the entire system of government procurement. This, he added, involves legislative reform and the establishment of the online e-procurement and supplier registry system (E-PSR).
“When we speak of government procurement, we are literally referring to goods and services which central government or state-owned enterprises purchase,” said Mr Turnquest.
“Government procurement accounts for a substantial portion of the Bahamian economy. Naturally, that means that it also accounts for a substantial portion of taxpayer’s money. Rightfully so, taxpayers expect us to carry out public procurement fairly, transparently, efficiently and with high standards of conduct.
“Recognising the weaknesses in our current system that expose the Government to waste and corruption, the public procurement reform that is currently underway is aimed at modernising the public procurement process by developing a strong and unified legal framework.
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(CNS): The finance ministry has recruited a new director for the Central Procurement Office (CPO), which is tasked with saving public money on necessary expenditure and ensuring value for money for the public purse by using appropriate procurement methods. Taraq Bashir is from the UK but came to Cayman from Montserrat, where he was head of government procurement and had helped review, develop and implement key reforms of the British Overseas Territory’s procurement regulations.
Now heading up one of Cayman’s newest departments, which was formally established under legislation implemented in May, Bashir will be expected to improve service and produce considerable savings for the Cayman Islands Government in its purchases of goods and services.
Officials said the new procurement boss, who has worked all over the world, has a track record of making significant savings in public entities, including saving one London authority £46 million by slashing procurement costs and renegotiating contracts.
Financial Secretary Kenneth Jefferson, who is chief officer at the ministry, said he was looking forward to Bashir achieving cost savings while “allowing all bidders a fair opportunity to supply the public sector with the goods and services it requires, and, in so doing, bring about increased public confidence that the procurement process is fair and will result in benefits for the Cayman Islands”.
Bashir has 30 years procurement experience in both the private and public sectors in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Caribbean. He has developed professional procurement functions at the national and local government levels, including strategies, laws and regulations.
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Several companies, including a United States (US) company with Middle Eastern connections, have bid to buy three of the six sugar estates owned by the Guyana government, on condition the buyers would continue to plant sugarcane and guarantee local employment, officials said Thursday.
Managing Director (Deals) of PricewaterhouseCoopers Tax and Advisory Services Limited, Wilfred Baghaloo said the prospective investors, before submitting their bids, had questioned whether they would be competing with the state-owned Guyana Sugar Corporation (Guysuco) for the same markets, access to cane varieties and the nursery and shipping logistics.
“The major concerns of potential bidders related to regulations that are needed to ensure fair competition between government, that is the legacy Guysuco,” he said. “As you know the government has agreement with SPS, a sugar protocol with the US (United States) government for access to sugar. We no longer agreements with the EU (European Union) but, in making their assessment of markets, they would like to know do they have access to the same markets,” Baghaloo added.
Other areas of concern by the likely investors, he said, included the state of the assets such as whether they are scrap metal or a potential going concern. The National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited’s (NICIL) Special Purpose Unit has been reactivating the Enmore, Skeldon and Rose Hall factories to offer them as going concerns, months after the Guyana government had closed them down.
Baghaloo declined to immediately release the names of the companies, but said they included one from the US/Middle East and several other local companies. He promised to release the bidders’ names on Friday after sifting through the 10 submissions to first ascertain which companies submitted bids for one or more than one estates.
“We got ten envelopes but that doesn’t mean we got ten bids and we are not able to determine that,” he said, adding that the team knows the names of the companies but first needs to summarise them….In other words, you can have one person submitting three bids,” he said. The PricewaterhouseCoopers official said the bidders include one based in Florida with shareholders in the Middle East, and other companies from the Caribbean. The locally-owned Demerara Distillers Limited has long expressed an interest in taking over the Enmore Estate/ East Demerara Estate.
Unlike the process at the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board, under the Procurement Commission Act, in which the names and price offerings are made public, Baghaloo said the prices would not be disclosed until most likely at the end of the process when Cabinet makes its decision
Privatisation Specialist at the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited’s (NICIL) Special Purpose Unit, Shawn Persaud said buyers of the Skeldon, Enmore and Rose Hall estates would be expected to use the sugar industry specific infrastructure and the labour. “There would be some importation of labour but that’s mainly the technical people if they can’t find them here but our casual workers have to be employed,” he said.
Baghaloo said sugarcane could be used to produce cosmetics, molasses, sugar crystals, liquid sugar, and electricity generation.
Although the bids were opened at 4 PM Wednesday in the presence of officials of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Auditor General’s Office, members of the steering committee and bidders, Baghaloo said he could not disclose the names now.
Going forward within the next 30 days, he said business and asset valuations would be conducted, ascertain whether the bids complied with the information memoranda that were sold at US$1,000 each, analyse the bids in keeping with the evaluation criteria, made recommendations to the Steering Committee and the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited’s Special Purpose Unit which would eventually make recommendations to Cabinet.
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