Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jun 23, 2017 News
Chairman of the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB), Berkeley Wickham noted yesterday that there needs to be proper procurement planning within the national procurement process.
Wickham said this during an orientation exercise held at the Police Officers’ Training Complex on Camp Street. The event was organised by NPTAB to sensitise persons interested in becoming evaluators to assess tenders for public projects. Procurement planning is the third step in the procurement process.
According to the NPTAB Chairman, poor procurement planning is something that is hurting the tendering process. During his presentation, Wickham said that public procurement is the process whereby the government identifies needs and problems for which the acquisition of goods, services and work are the appropriate solution. He said that after the needs are identified, the government engages the market to identify suppliers for the relevant solution.
Speaking on the need for proper procurement planning, Wickham said that if these government agencies know they need something they should work backwards, so as to ascertain when they should start the process.
He said that if it is that infrastructure works needs to be done, then the procuring entities (government agencies) can get their designs in order, prepare the necessary documents, and get proper engineer’s estimates.
According to Wickham, if this is done, the tendering process can begin, evaluators can evaluate the submitted bids and the recommendations can be made to the procuring entity in a timely manner. He said that when the procuring entity approves the recommendation it is returned to NPTAB for approval.
However, if the cost of the contract award is above $15M, the recommendation must be forwarded to Cabinet for its no objection, before returning to NPTAB for final award.
Wickham said that if government agencies start working at a certain time, there will be no rush to evaluate bids, leading to emergency purchases being made. He said that from 2018, proper procurement planning will be mandatory.
Moreover, Wickham informed the prospective evaluators that there is an economic significance of public procurement. He said that it is a critical part of economic development of Guyana and is estimated in the order of 20 to 30 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product.
He said that this is so, since Guyana has a comparatively weak private sector and government therefore acts as a primary economic driver. The NPTAB Chairman added that there are a number of stakeholders involved in the procurement process.
Wickham added that the key concepts of public procurement are outlined in the Procurement Act of 2003. These concepts include the maximisation of the economy and efficiency in procurement, achievement of transparency in the procedures relating to procurement and the promotion of competition among suppliers and contractors.
The Chairman stressed that as evaluators the attendees will have to ensure that detailed written records are kept in the form of evaluation reports to achieve transparency. This means that minutes, among other things, must detail the actions of the evaluation panel throughout the procurement process.
He said that this will ensure that any discriminatory behaviour can be prevented or at least monitored. Offering further clarity to the process, Wickham said that the public procurement process ends with the contract award. He said that activities which follow are referred to as ‘contract administration.’
Also addressing the prospective evaluators was Chief Executive Officer of NPTAB, Donald De Clou. He reiterated the point that detailed records must be kept by evaluators so as to build public confidence in the procurement process.
He said that ideally there should be a chairperson to lead the process and a secretary to provide support to the chairperson. He informed the attendees that the evaluation committee has one job and that is to make recommendations to the procuring entity. He said that the committee is appointed the day before the opening of tenders and a recommendation of the lowest evaluated tender is expected to be made to the procuring entity no later than 14 days.
The NPTAB had recently advertised in the print media for persons interested in being evaluators. According to the Board’s Chairman, the appeal to the public is geared towards widening the scope of available evaluators. He said that currently, the majority of evaluators are persons found within the public service. Each evaluator will be paid $3000 per evaluation.
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