Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jun 10, 2016 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
The Georgetown City Council should have gone to tender for the supply of parking meters. The Council has acted contrary to expectations by moving ahead, without tenders, for two companies to provide parking meters in Georgetown
The decision not to go to tender for such an important service is at odds with what the ruling coalition was preaching – the need for transparency in the procurement process. There is no guarantee under such an arrangement that the public will receive the best deal possible.
Procurement laws were intended to ensure not only that the public gets the best deal possible. The public gets the best deal when there is a competitive process.
The competitive process ensures fairness in the award of contracts for the supply of goods and services. Competition is seen as the best way to ensure that the most competitive bid wins, and that there is no bias in the award of contracts. The best-suited person gets the job under a fair and competitive process.
The competitive process also ensures that the public gets the best deal possible. Without competition, prices for the supply of goods and services would increase. Competition acts as an incentive for quality, even though there needs to be other safeguards to assure this outcome.
A successful bidder under a competitive process knows that if he or she does substandard work or does not provide a proper service, then a competitor may eventually displace him or her. This is one of the reasons why a competitive process is needed for the provision of services to the public.
The procurement laws of Guyana provide that all goods and services procured by government must be done through tender. This is the law of the land, and if it not complied with, then it is unlawful. A criminal offence need not be created, but it is still unlawful, and there can be other remedies under the law for persons affected by the failure of government to go to tender.
The problem with Guyana’s procurement laws is that they do not apply to municipalities. The laws ought to, but the municipality is not bound to go to tender for the services it requires. The government should immediately move to correct this defect and ensure that there is greater transparency in local government.
The City Council should have gone to tender. The same two service suppliers may still have won, but the process would have been more transparent and fair, and the public would have felt that the best deal was achieved.
The public cannot be sure at this stage that the best deal has been reached. We are told that the City Council is likely to get 20% of the revenues earned by the parking meters. Without a competitive process there is no way of knowing for sure whether some other company would have offered 30%. We are told that the public may have to pay $125. We do not know whether some other company would have offered to charge $40.
The municipality is making another mistake. It should not be entering into any contract for parking meters at this stage, because the municipal laws do not allow for the charging of parking fees by the municipality for its agents. The Municipal and District Councils Act authorizes the City Council to charge rates. It has no authority to charge parking fees.
It also has no authority under the Municipal and District Councils Act to charge any taxes on containers. The law does not give it such powers. The City Council, if it feels differently, should provide to the public the legal basis on which it proposes to charge motorists for parking in the city, and for the passage of containers.
The proposed container tax is also in contravention of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas and the World Trade Organization rules. Guyana is a signatory to both treaties.
The container tax is directed against imports only, since it is only imports that come in containers. This means that the tax will be deemed discriminatory against imports, since it is not applicable to local goods.
Guyana already faces billion-dollar judgments in relation to breaches of the Treaty of Chaguaramas. Guyana should not risk another adverse ruling from the Caribbean Court of Justice because of the introduction of a tax which is not even legislated.
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