PRIME Minister Dr Keith Rowley is convinced something crooked took place in the procurement of the Ocean Flower II. He made the point at a news conference at the Magdalena Grand Hotel in Tobago yesterday after close to two hours of talks with stakeholders on the problems facing the domestic seabridge. Rowley was confident that investigations by Cabinet appointed investigator Christian Mouttet, the Integrity Commission and the Parliament’s Land and Physical Infrastructure Joint Select Committee (JSC) would discover the truth about the circumstances under which the Ocean Flower II was procured.
He said the Port Authority is now “working overtime” to acquire the services of another passenger ferry before the TT Express goes on dry dock. Expressing confidence that more vessels would be available during the upcoming winter period, Rowley said the Authority will broaden its search to all parts of the spectrum to find an appropriate passenger vessel for the seabridge.
He reminded reporters that Cabinet has already agreed to put out a tender for a new cargo vessel built to Government’s specifications.
Rowley said this arrangement could result in a two to three year contract being signed for that vessel’s usage. He said once the Spirit and the Express have undergone their long overdue maintenance, they should be able to service the seabridge for at least another two years.
Rowley disclosed stakeholders agreed to a proposal to appoint two more Tobagonians to the Port Authority’s board of directors to ensure there is no repeat of the problems now facing the seabridge. He also announced that a committee comprising representatives from Government, the Tobago House of Assembly and the private sector will be established to deal with operational issues on the seabridge.
He rejected claims by some that yesterday’s meeting was “a waste of time.” Rowley said contrary to those claims, the discussions were fruitful.
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The Government has met six of the 10 Economic Growth Council (EGC) policy recommendations targeted for implementation during the April to June quarter.
EGC Chairman, Michael Lee-Chin, made the disclosure at the presentation of the Council’s third quarterly report at the Spanish Court Hotel in New Kingston on Thursday, July 27.
The policy recommendations come under three areas of reform – business climate, specifically public procurement; asset utilisation, in particular debt reduction and State asset privatisation; and Diaspora involvement in relation to immigration.
Mr. Lee-Chin said that among the targets met in the area of business climate reform was work by the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service to draft the Public Procurement (Techniques, Procedures and Offsets) Regulations and Public Procurement (Reconsideration and Review) Regulations, which were completed and tabled in Parliament in May.
Additionally, he noted that the Ministry completed work to develop the framework for public debt reduction through a programme of State asset privatisation and sale.
The Chairman noted, however, that the May timeline to finalise and table the Public Procurement (Registration and Classification of Suppliers) Regulations, and complete the Handbook of Public Sector Procurement Procedures were missed.
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The prime minister of St. Kitts and Nevis, the Honourable Dr. Timothy Harris, has indicated that all tender procedures have been followed regarding the construction of the new Basseterre High School (BHS), after some posed questions as to why overseas contractors were offered the job.
Questioned at his last press conference regarding the tender process in relation to the BHS, Harris noted that all the contracts for capital projects that have been awarded were subjected to all the rules related to procurement that have been followed by his administration and will always be followed.
“We have always, for the record, have tendering and invited more than one person,” he said. “Indeed, the financial secretary and the deputy financial secretary would say we often ask for at least three tenders, particularly if the capital project is of any magnitude, and this is in the DNA of the government, that wherever public monies are to be spent, we are assured that we are getting value for money and where [people] are given contracts and they fail to perform those contracts would be aborted, that is the norm.”
He further indicated that a committee of qualified individuals from both the private and public sector was established and is responsible for making recommendations as to who will be awarded government contracts.
“In fact, we have a committee that basically makes recommendations in relation to any work assignment,” he added. “A committee comprising [people] from the private sector, from public works, from the Office of the Prime Minister under whose remit that that matter basically falls, and they relate to the relevant people in the Ministry of Finance. Everything is [an] open book.”
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The Pan American Health Organisaton/ World Health Organisation has dispatched an expert to audit the procurement process at the Ministry of Public Health and the state-run Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), the ministry announced Tuesday.
“I found that it (the procurement process) was a bigger issue than I thought” Lawrence said during Tuesday’s early-morning meeting.
“I didn’t think it was as bad as I found it (but) this is the beginning of the process” of regularising operations in the wider health sector, Lawrence said.
Professor Jaime Espin Balbino of the Andalusian School of Public Health, Regional Ministry of Health is spearheading the forensic exercise which will target the operations of the MOPH and the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) Health Minister, Volda Lawrence (MP) said Tuesday during a meeting with officials of those entities.
The Health Ministry said PAHO/WHO is funding the cost of the audit.
Lawrence reportedly said the the audit into how things are currently done and the specific changes that will be implemented will provide the roadmap for the future to remove the existing “vast deficiencies in knowledge and manpower.”
The forensic audit comes on the heels of public complaints into the procurement process, the quality of drugs, and allegations of shortage of drugs, medical supplies and pharmaceuticals in the government-run sector. The announcement of the audit comes weeks after the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) had announced a probe into government’s “emergency” purchase of more than GYD$600 million in drugs without passing through the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board.
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The newly implemented drug procurement system requires successful suppliers to register all drugs with the Government Analyst Food and Drug Department (GA-FDD). This is to ensure that quality drugs and medical supplies are acquired through the procurement system.
This was highlighted during a presentation by Technical Advisor to the Ministry of Public Health on the Global Health Supply Chain Management, Cecil Jacks. Jacks was at the time speaking at the recently concluded, Staff training and Capacity Building exercise for Regional Health Officers(RHOs) and Programme Heads of the Ministry of Public Health at the Lake Mainstay Resort.
It has been recognised that suppliers who have won bids for the supply of drugs did not register imported items with the GA-FDD. This has resulted in the inefficiency of prescribed drugs to patients. Jacks pointed out that this problem is simply because the evaluation aspect of the tendering process is not being effectively implemented.
“There is a bad practice in Guyana where when the evaluation committee is nominated and selected by NPTAB (National Procurement and Tender Administration Board) they don’t do their jobs, they depend on the procurement assistants from MMU (Materials Management Unit) to do the evaluation and then just send them the report and they sign off, we learnt that. That is a lesson we learnt, so the new trend now is to get these evaluators lock them in a room for like a week or two, get the evaluation out of the way and let us proceed,” Jacks was quoted as saying in a statement issued by government’s Department of Public Information (DPI).
He also said that the Ministry of Public Health did not have a proficient procurement unit. This affected the way regional procurement was handled through the ministry. “For the very first time in its history we have recruited an entire procurement unit so we have literally built a procurement unit from scratch.”
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