World Bank, Finance Ministry collaborate to strengthen procurement capacity

The Finance Ministry through the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) has collaborated with the World Bank to host a two-day workshop on procurement processes, targeting some 63 specialists from agencies and Ministries that have ongoing World Bank projects.

The two part training session opened on Thursday at the Finance Ministry and is being facilitated by a small team from the World Bank.
The workshop comes almost a week after President David Granger installed a five-member Public Procurement Commission.

Catherine Abreu Rojos, World Bank’s Deputy programme Specialist for Guyana, Suriname and The Dominican Republic, reported on the programme.
“The training is in collaboration with NPTAB and the Government of Guyana in order to strengthen capacity in the areas of procurement procedures. The World Bank has been working together with NPTAB to identify from the pool of evaluators they used. The training will focus on evaluation procedures according to the Bank’s procedures and evaluation guidelines,” she told members of the media.
According to the programme specialist, participants will be trained how to evaluate goods and services as well as consultant services. She said the training will hopefully improve the quality and speed of evaluation by the banks.
Asked to compare Guyana’s procurement standard to those of the World Bank, Rojos said the situation is the same in all countries. She said once a country signs an agreement with the banks, that country has to follow the rules of procurement and financial management, but at the same time, the bank supports the local procedures for procurement. She said there are some major similarities between the World Bank and Guyana procurement practices.
Meanwhile, Chairman of the National Procurement and Tender Board, Berkley Wickham, spoke of the significance of the workshop.
“The World Bank has some very clearly defined processes that have to be followed. From time to time, as persons change in Ministries, it is important for them to have a good understanding of the process, particularly the persons who have to evaluate World Bank projects. This is to ensure that all the people who have to interface projects are on the same page”.
He said the training is very much important as it promotes accountability and transparency.
“People are involved in using the process to move forward, so they have to always understand the requirements,” the chairman said.