Five persons nominated to sit on Public Procurement Commission

Jan 06, 2022 News

President of the Guyana Bar Association, Pauline Chase

Kaieteur News – Five persons have been selected to sit on the Public Procurement Commission (PPC), two years after the life of this critical procurement oversight body ended.During this period tens of billions of dollars in contracts have been awarded by the PPP/C administration with little oversight. The nominees were chosen as by a subcommittee of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

former Chairman of the National Tender Board, Berkely Wickham

Among the five names agreed to by the government and opposition are: President of the Guyana Bar Association, Pauline Chase, former Chairman of the National Tender Board, Berkely Wickham, Economists, Rawle Lucas and Joel Bhagwandin and Rajnarine Singh.
Speaking to the Kaieteur News on Wednesday, PAC Chairman Jermaine Figueira related that the process is closer to being finalised. He explained that the names will be presented to the PAC for approval before it goes to the National Assembly for its decision for the appointments to take effect and for the members of the PPC to take their oath of office. He said the names will be presented to the PAC when the committee meets next Monday.Earlier this week, Figueira used the word “untenable,” to describe the slothfulness of the government to bring on stream the long overdue Public Procurement Commission (PPC).

Rawle Lucas

The PPC is the body which exercises a major regulatory and oversight role in public procurement and the awarding of government contracts. 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, but it has not been in place since October 2019. This, despite a sub-committee of the PAC was established more than six months ago to deal with the short listing of names.

Joel Bhagwandin

The government side of the PAC had previously been accused of not submitting its final nominees from the shortlisted names. At the first meeting of the PAC for the year, Figueira accused the government of stalling on the very important business of establishing the PPC.