Procurement Regulator’s first report laid in Parliament

Lead Editor Investigations

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Despite being in the works for over five years, the public service was unprepared for the implementation of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property Act.

This delayed the Office of the Procurement Regulator (OPR) in accounting for the first fiscal year of operations when it was due in December 2023.

In its first annual report, a 497-page document laid in Parliament yesterday, Procurement Regulator Beverly Khan said the office has” had to grapple with several complexities in the acquisition, consolidation and validation of the data necessary to facilitate a comprehensive analysis for reporting purposes.”

“The process would have commenced in earnest in October 2023. The intent then was to report on the five-month period between full proclamation and the end of the fiscal year 2022/2023 and thereafter, on an annual basis for each fiscal year. However, this process was stymied as public bodies encountered a multiplicity of challenges with timely and effective reporting while the Office manoeuvred emerging deficiencies in the reporting platform,” Khan said.

“The convergence of these factors made data reconciliation and validation difficult, with adverse consequences for data quality to the extent that the data reported for the period was deemed “unreliable”. Cognisant of our statutory responsibility to all stakeholders, the Office weighed the risks associated with reporting prematurely on unreliable data. The decision was taken to delay reporting to provide a fair opportunity to public bodies to improve their level of reporting, thus providing an accurate and comprehensive report to the Parliament.”

The report covers the period April 26, 2023 to April 25, 2024 , with a section which cover the period April 26, 2023 – March 31, 2024.

Khan said her office had to pivot the course of its work to understand and resolve, as far as possible, the reporting and compliance challenges faced by public bodies, with a view to accelerating their knowledge and understanding of the new system.

“In this effort, the office unearthed the prevalence of a sizable capacity deficit within public bodies, in terms of both competent human resources and systems, and a general unpreparedness to operate in accordance with the new legislative framework. The office also encountered its own challenges as it navigated an avalanche of demands from public bodies for clarifications, guidance and technical support, while having to balance the resolution of operational issues with supplier and contractor registration and pre-qualification on the Procurement Depository. In reality, the level of preparedness for the transformative changes brought on by full proclamation of the act was grossly inadequate,” she said.

The Public Procurement and Disposal of Property Act was fully proclaimed on April 26, 2023.

However, in July 2023 the Government had to go back to Parliament to amend the act to increase the amount that public servants were allowed to sign off on to one million.

At the time, Finance Minister Colm Imbert said Government would not have been able to host Caricom’s 50th anniversary commemoration if it had to follow the onerous procedures in the procurement legislation, because the procurement regulations would not have allowed the State to provide accommodation, transportation, audio-visual services and other services required to host visiting dignitaries and heads, and to hold the Caricom summit.

The office OPR was established legislatively in 2015 and the first procurement regulator, Moonilal Lalchan, was appointed in 2018.

Khan observed that following the first year’s performance, that “what is apparent is that there is still much work to be done by Government agencies charged with human resource management and systematic change in the public service, as well as by public bodies, suppliers and contractors and the office.”

For the first two quarters of fiscal 2023/2024, she said her office focussed its energies on improving compliance, particularly in terms of reporting and data quality with a view to reporting on the one-year period since full proclamation of the act.