Premier Dr. the Honourable Natalio Wheatley has dismissed the recent claims made by the Governor in his Quarterly Review report which claims that the National Unity Government continues to unjustifiably issue tender waivers for some government contracts.
Premier Wheatley responded to the claims during last Friday’s press conference as he addressed a number of concerns that he had with the review report.
His Excellency Governor John Rankin had stated within his Quarterly Review report that “proposals for tender waivers are still being presented for consideration by Cabinet, often with insufficient and poorly– presented justification”.
The governor stated, “Some of these proposals date from contractual commitments made by the previous administration. But even in these cases, the Government of National Unity has in many cases failed to take action to launch tender processes before the expiry of the current contract and has proposed waivers for contract extensions without evidence of value for money. I have referred several of these for further audit investigation.”
Responding to the governor’s comments, Premier Wheatley said the claims made in the Quarterly Review regarding tender waivers were inaccurate, adding that his government utilised three main procurement options when issuing government contracts.
He said, “In terms of tender waivers, it is important to understand that this term does not appear in our local laws. The Public Finance Management Act mandates that all contracts 100,000 and above be tendered unless Cabinet directs otherwise. Therefore, Cabinet had unlimited discretion in choosing not to tender, which we recognized had to change. Way before the COI, we were in the process of developing a stand-alone procurement act to modernize our legislative framework on procurement.”
Premier Wheatley also sought to explain the three procurement options, which included open tendering, restricted tendering, and single-source procurement.
“We now have in place the Public Procurement Act which gives clear guidelines on how procurement is to be done, and this has removed the open discretion which previously existed. Procurement can be done through open tendering, restricted tendering or single source procurement for the most part. The circumstances in which each can be done is clearly defined in the law and is supposed to improve competitive bidding, value for money and transparency. Single source procurement is not the equivalent of a tender waiver; it clearly defines the instances where it is not necessary to go through an open tender. For example, contracts for emergencies or a national security matter do not have to go through open tendering,” he explained.
The premier also revealed that various ministries are in a transitional phase, moving away from the previous practice of signed rolling contracts for various services and ensuring that his government is fully engaged in open tendering for such goods and services.
He said, “These contractual arrangements were made before the new legislation was passed. The Ministry of Finance is providing the required training to Accounting Officers and Financial Planning Officers across government to expedite this process. In the meantime, however, we cannot simply stop procuring the goods and services needed, such as transporting our students or security services for detainees. A transition period is necessary to integrate previously signed rolling contracts into the new system now in place under the Procurement Act.”