–Parliamentary Affairs Minister says

MINISTER of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira, on Tuesday revealed that the reconstituted Public Procurement Commission (PPC) has done more in just 18 months compared to the previous body under the former APNU+AFC administration.

The minister made this disclosure during consideration of the estimates of expenditures by the Parliamentary Committee of Supply, where questions arose in relation to the work done by the PPC which was reconstituted in July 2022.

Member of Parliament David Patterson questioned the minister as to whether the funds that have been expended by the agency since its reconstitution in 2022 would be considered “value for money.”

Minister Teixeira responded and noted that the government is getting value for money allocated to the agency.

She said that the constitutional agency has some 13 functions as stipulated in the constitution, one of which happens to be investigations.

The minister noted that after a long period from 2018-2020, the body was reconstituted in 2022, and matters have to be referred to it whether by complaints or by people requesting investigations.

“They have their own monitoring rules and, therefore, if they have been able to complete four investigations that is based on a request made to them… they may have two that they have published,” she said.

This, the minister added, is in stark contrast to the previous commission that was appointed in 2018 and got an additional extension to 2020 by the former President, but produced only two reports during that time.

Minister Teixeira said: “So, the comparison of the commission that was appointed in 2018 to 2020 that got an additional time through the honourable President [David Granger] produced two reports, two reports from 2018 to 2020 sir and you know two of the reports, you know one very well, you know one extremely well, which has to do with the Demerara Harbour bridge which you know is a matter in court sir.”

She indicated that the current PPC is responding to the requests they get, the availability of documents to investigate, among other things. Further, they have completed four investigations and two have been published.

“They have two that they have published and that is between July 2022 when they were appointed and December 2023; and if my calculations of months is [sic] right, they did better than the original and the first PPC,” Teixeira added.

As Patterson pressed and repeated questions on the salaries of the staff members and the investigations that they have done, the minister stated that the PPC has some 13 functions and questions could also be asked on those areas.

Further, she revealed that the PPC visited seven of the 10 administrative regions and held training programmes and outreaches with contractors, public servants and they have also been monitoring what has been going on in a number of agencies.

“…Please don’t restrict yourself…the issue is that investigation is one of the 13 functions of the PPC and maybe you wish to ask questions on those other functions,” she said.