CAL needs procurement exemption, says Imbert
Trinidad and Tobago
CARIBBEAN Airlines (CAL) will have to be exempt from the procurement regime or else it would not be able to operate.
So said Finance Minister Colm Imbert yesterday as he wound up the debate on the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property (Validation and Amendment) Act in the Senate. Imbert said he heard Independent Senator Dr Maria Dillon-Remy say that there would be few exemptions. “Sorry, not true,” he said.
“Prior to the proclamation of the Act, the Caribbean Airlines used a tendering process for all products or services, which required an investment of over US$100,000. Based on the Act many of our processes now require special guidelines, then senior management approval prior to submission and then approval by the OPR due to the specialised nature of our industry,” Imbert said,
Imbert said the areas that now require exemption include airport and aircraft leases, fuel contracts, aircraft maintenance and pilot training.
“Caribbean Airlines is now flying to all sorts of destinations, but because they are a public body, a wholly-owned State enterprise, subject to the Act, every one of these things, buying fuel, they land in Miami, they buy fuel; they land in New York, they buy fuel; they go to Toronto and they have to engage ground handling services, different suppliers in each destination for different things. According to the Act, every one of these things now has to be with a supplier that is registered with the procurement depository and pre-qualified and has gone through the tender process, the 20 days for bidding, and also the standstill period and so on. Obviously, we will have to do some sort of conditional exemption for Caribbean Airlines as it flies, otherwise, Caribbean Airlines will just stop flying,” he said.
Imbert said on July 13 he received a letter from Caribbean Airlines detailing its challenges with operating under the new procurement regime, which he read in the Upper House.
Image: Tarik Nachat (Pexels)
Imbert said the areas that now require exemption include airport and aircraft leases, fuel contracts, aircraft maintenance and pilot training.
“Caribbean Airlines is now flying to all sorts of destinations, but because they are a public body, a wholly-owned State enterprise, subject to the Act, every one of these things, buying fuel, they land in Miami, they buy fuel; they land in New York, they buy fuel; they go to Toronto and they have to engage ground handling services, different suppliers in each destination for different things. According to the Act, every one of these things now has to be with a supplier that is registered with the procurement depository and pre-qualified and has gone through the tender process, the 20 days for bidding, and also the standstill period and so on. Obviously, we will have to do some sort of conditional exemption for Caribbean Airlines as it flies, otherwise, Caribbean Airlines will just stop flying,” he said.
Imbert said on July 13 he received a letter from Caribbean Airlines detailing its challenges with operating under the new procurement regime, which he read in the Upper House.
He said CAL gave some background which was that it had experienced an increased demand for air travel following the relaxation of border restrictions, leading the airline to urgently review and optimise its operating schedule resulting in an increasing call for CAL to expand its routes and frequency of flights to meet the demand of various territories.
CAL, he said, is acquiring three more wide-bodies aircraft, four more ATRs and three to four mid-range jets for interregional travel and it was also expanding the destinations that it plans to go to the upper Caribbean, British Virgin Islands and Central and South America and other destinations in North America.