Dear Editor,
There is one fundamental difference between the former Ramotar government and this new Granger government: I get responses to my public and private queries. So although I will call members of the Granger administration out on transgressions like Nortongate, the stone issue and the non-establishment of the Public Procurement Commission, some of the most senior members of the Granger government are mature enough to realise that we all love Guyana and thus continue to communicate with me privately like mature people. We all recognise like Buddha that “three things cannot be hidden – the sun, the moon and the truth.”
Special mention must go to two very senior functionaries in the Ministry of the Presidency who on most occasions have taken the time out of their busy schedules to respond privately to my public and private queries. I want to express total gratitude for such a display of maturity.
I wrote a letter to the press on the finalization of the establishment of the Public Procurement Commission and I got a response from both of these senior functionaries who advised that the Ministry of the Presidency has completed its work and that all the instruments to vest that power in the hands of the commissioners have been fully prepared and are ready to be distributed to the respective commissioners at their swearing in ceremony. But there is a spanner in the wheel; I was advised that they are awaiting the deliberations of the Public Accounts Committee on the finalizing of the terms and conditions of the PPC including the remuneration package of the Chairman.
If the delay is being caused by the opposition party in the form of the PAC’s Chairman, it is absolutely silly for them to undermine any opportunity to further empower their hands by taking the process of procurement out of the hands of the Cabinet. For the record, my objective is absolutely clear, I hold no brief for any side (PPP or PNC), I love Guyana and its working class more. What works for the working man, works for me. It is in the best interest of the working class that politicians be excluded from the state-funded procurement process. It is time Guyana leaves the procurement process up to the procurement professionals.
Yours faithfully,
Sase Singh
