On Thursday the Government employed its parliamentary majority to pass the Procurement Bill 2003 after the PNCR and Mrs Sheila Holder of GAP/WPA had walked out. The walk-out was occasioned by the refusal of the Government to entertain the opposition proposal to send the bill to select committee. Under pressure from the World Bank which had wanted reform of the procurement process, the PPP/C had already passed a Procurement Bill in May 2002, during the period when the PNCR was out of Parliament. However, that particular item of legislation had not addressed some of the concerns of the Bank, and the Government had therefore agreed to repeal it, and pass an amended law by the end of last year. Owing to the continued absence of the main opposition party from the National Assembly, that timetable had to be revised, and the new deadline was consequently set for the end of this month.
Presumably, with the deadline as an excuse, the Government allowed little time for parliamentarians and interested groups to study the provisions of the new Procurement Bill. The First Reading of the bill was on June 5, although copies were not available on that date for MPs to peruse. Those based in Georgetown and environs did receive copies in time for the Second Reading, although some of those in the hinterland might not have done so. And as for the public consultations on the bill which the World Bank had required, these only began three days before the Second Reading.
While it is true that the Government was constrained time-wise by the fact that the PNCR only returned to Parliament at the beginning of May, the question remains as to why it was that the bill was printed so late, and why consultations with interest groups could not have been held much earlier - perhaps even before the PNCR returned to the National Assembly, provided there was the understanding that there would have been no unilateral passage of the legislation this time around. Wherever possible, democratic principles require that consultations be given sufficient time to be meaningful.
In fairness, there were some amendments to the bill passed at the committee stage, including one which secured the end of Cabinet’s involvement in the procurement process once the Public Procurement Commission - a body mandated by the constitution - had been set up. Another amendment increased the representation of the private sector on the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board(which replaces the Central Tender Board), from two to three, after consultations with representative organizations. It should be noted, however, that these three members in addition to the five from the Public Service will be appointed by the Minister of Finance.
While this amendment represents a limited improvement on the previous clause, which allowed for only two members from the private sector and no prior consultations with representative organizations, it still leaves the Government in control of appointments to the board. As Mr Winston Murray of the PNCR pointed out, under the original draft the power to appoint had been vested in the President, and now it is vested in the Minister. He went on to draw attention to the fact that the national board also had the authority to appoint the majority of members of the five-member boards at the regional and district levels.
Mrs Holder, like Mr Murray, raised the issue of some of the powers of the Public Procurement Commission being usurped under the new legislation, while Mr Dev of ROAR, who also voiced objections to specific provisions in the bill, commented that the procurement system went to the heart of the racial division in the society - the distribution of the national patrimony.
He is certainly not mistaken in this regard, and given the understandable difficulties the combined opposition had with certain clauses in the bill; given the need to publicly demonstrate transparency; and given the fact that the bill was too complex to be debated in detail by the full Parliament, it is more than a little unfortunate that the Government refused to allow it to go to committee. Even with the June 30 deadline, it still had time to do this; a few days in committee would not have jeopardised the time-frame for passage in the House before the end of the month.
What is particularly disturbing, however, is the fact that the Parliamentary Management Committee had already agreed that complex and controversial bills would be referred to select committee, and whatever else is said, this bill is certainly complicated and controversial. So here we have a situation where following endless heartache over the setting up of the Parliamentary Management Committee, when it is finally established, the Government simply bypasses its decision. In so doing, it has not only brought its own good faith into question, but it has also undermined a committee that was intended to promote the democracy and inclusiveness to which the PPP/C has always declared itself committed. Just what on earth, one wonders, is the governing party doing?
That old attitudes die hard even in the face of new inclusive constitutional arrangements, is suggested not just by actions, but also by words. Defending the Government during debate on the bill against opposition criticism that too much authority was being vested in the Minister of Finance, Minister Manzoor Nadir was reported in our Friday edition as saying (among other things) that the Government had the right to exercise executive power as a consequence of winning a majority at the elections.
This is a bad start to the new era. Even if opposition criticism had been unfounded, that would still have been no excuse for curtailing discussion at both the public and the political level, and in the process transgressing not just the spirit, but also the substance of the recent agreements on the functioning of Parliament. As it was, however, the combined opposition reservations about the bill were anything but trivial, and on those grounds alone were deserving of consideration by a special select committee.
Since the international financial institutions were the ones who insisted on amendments to the 2002 law in the first place, the nation waits to see what their reaction will be to the new legislation.