No accountability Opposition concerned over award of Govt contracts
Trinidad and Tobago
Opposition MP Davendranath Tancoo has challenged the Government on its spending, claiming that in its almost ten years in office million-dollar contracts were being awarded to contractors without accountability.
Referring to the 472-page Procurement Regulator Report which was laid in Parliament last week, Tancoo said the Government needs to say how contracts valued at just about $5 billion were awarded by government institutions.
Speaking yesterday at the United National Congress (UNC) weekly media briefing, the Oropouche West MP and Opposition shadow minister for finance said the figure represented 10% of the annual budget for the whole country.
“The Regulator reported that some of the practices observed included the inappropriate and unjustified use of limited and non-competitive procurement methods. Further it was found that single and sole source methods were frequently used, indicating a refusal to follow fair, transparent and fully accountable and openly competitive process,” he said.
Tancoo called on the Government to explain why government agencies were not providing required information about contracts being awarded by them, although this was a requirement of Section 37 of the Procurement Act.
“In other words, more than half of the contracts awarded in this one year by the PNM Government through State boards and statutory bodies were in violation of the Procurement Act,” he alleged.
A country run
by criminals
Tancoo said while taxpayers’ dollars were being spent on these contracts, citizens were being denied proper services.
“Today we have a fire service with 2,000 active firemen having to share ten breathing apparatus amongst themselves in case of a fire. So 200 men have to use one breathing apparatus. So what will happen in a fire? Think of the idiocy of the situation, and the danger to fire officers. Today we have a police service which is short-staffed, lacking vehicles, bulletproof vests, computers, even furniture and basic stationery in stations. The prison service is similarly compromised because they too are severely underfunded. Our coast guard has been crippled by the absence of working vessels,” he said.
Tancoo asked the Government to take a serious look at how their mismanagement of the funding has been affecting citizens.
image: Contract-agreement