President to swear in members after finalisation of terms, conditions

Public Procurement Commission

President David Granger is awaiting the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to finalise the remuneration packages, Terms of Reference and other administrative arrangements before swearing in the members of the much-anticipated Public Procurement Commission (PPC).

This is according to Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, who explained during the post-Cabinet briefing on Thursday that the work of the PAC was preliminary to the appointment of the members. He noted that before the members of the PPC are sworn in, the PAC needed to finalise certain terms and conditions.

“As soon as the Public Accounts Committee sits, there are some proposals which will go before it in so far as salaries and things like that. The law requires the Chairman of the (Public Procurement) Commission is a full-time employee of that commission, which means that those persons who are named – one of them will be a chairman and another will be a vice chairman, and if they are working somewhere else, one of those persons will have to leave their job,” the Minister of State outlined.

Harmon continued, “So, if you are working somewhere and going for another job, at least you must know what the salary you will be getting before you leave your job, and so it is some of these terms and conditions that have to be settled by the Public Accounts Committee.”

At the end of July 2016, the PAC agreed on the nominees for the PPC, and that list was subsequently approved by a two-thirds majority of the National Assembly on August 8.

The approved members include Attorney Emily Dodson, Carol Corbin, University of Guyana lecturer Sukrishnalall Pasha, educator Ivor English and former Labour Minister Nanda Gopaul.

This list was subsequently sent to the Head of State for the members to be sworn in, but this is yet to be done, as Government is awaiting the finalisation of the terms and conditions for the Commission.

However, PAC Chairman, Opposition parliamentarian Irfaan Ali recently pointed out that the President could go ahead with swearing in the members of the Procurement Commission, as he did not have to necessarily wait for the Committee to finish its work on the PPC.

Nevertheless, Ali assured that the PAC, “after the Parliament comes out of recess, would be moving to have this issue as a priority on its agenda in setting out the administrative mechanism to support the work of the Public Procurement Commission, so there is nothing that is stopping the President from swearing in the members of the Public Procurement Commission”.

Meanwhile, Harmon said on Thursday that Government was also supportive of fast-tracking the process at the level of the Parliamentary Committee.

“We will like that to be a top priority as well, and we will give that our full support to ensure that it is fast tracked,” he stated.

On the other hand, the Minister of State outlined that once the PPC was set up, it would pave the way for the establishment of the Public Procurement Tribunal – a process which the Commission would need to have a say in. “The Public Procurement Commission has a role in the selecting of that tribunal – one has to be set up before the other so that the one that is set up before can have a say in the setting up of the other. So, we got to get the Public Procurement Commission up and running and then the Tribunal will be set up,” he explained. The issue of establishing the PPC predated the holding of the General and Regional Elections in May 2015, as the then Opposition had insisted that Cabinet should cease the practice of giving its ‘no objection’ to contracts for State projects and services, in favour of the PPC.