Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairman, Jermaine Figueira has expressed dismay at the government’s apparent slothfulness to fast-track the establishment of the Public Procurement Commission (PPC).
Figueira, an Opposition Member of Parliament (MP), during a podcast, “Below the Belt” hosted by colleague MP, Sherod Duncan, said the government’s point person, Minister of Governance and Parliamentary Affairs, Gail Teixeira has been engaged in foot-dragging in the hammering out of shortlisted persons to be appointed to the body.
“Many efforts were made by me for Ms Teixeira and I to meet because the Public Accounts Committee would have restored the confidence in myself and her to establish a subcommittee that deals with specifically with this issue. It has been way beyond six months since we’ve been trying to bring this issue to a finality…So that the Guyanese population can be comforted in the fact that we have a Public Procurement Commission set up and it is operationalised,” Figueira lamented.
His comments follow similar concerns he raised when the PAC met yesterday.
“The Opposition is ready for this to be set up, and I strongly believe that the Government is pussyfooting around the issue, and it is time we bring this to finality,” Figueira was quoted as saying by the Kaieteur News today.
The MP, during the podcast, noted that the absence of the PPC stymies transparency and accountability in public procurement. He added that the commission must be established “expeditiously” to ensure that contractors can have recourse to lodge complaints and raise issues.
The PPC monitors public procurement to ensure the principles of fairness, equity, value for money, and competition are upheld and to ensure that the procedures of public procurement are executed in accordance with the laws of Guyana. The life of the last PPC ended since 2019.
