President Irfaan Ali this afternoon appointed four of the five persons nominated to serve on the Public Procurement Commission (PPC).
Those sworn in were financial analyst Joel Bhagwandin, Rajnarine Singh, and Diana Rajkumar and Berkeley Wickham. The other nominee is attorney Pauline Chase.
The swearing in came months after the nominees received a two-thirds majority approval in the National Assembly.
The commission will function for three years.
The chairman and deputy chairman for the commission will be elected by the commissioners at their first meeting.
During the swearing in, Ali told the commissioners that their work is one that requires collective effort and constructive thinking. He said he was confident that their combined skillset will serve the needs of the Commission.
There has been no PPC since October of 2020 and billions of dollars’ in public works contracts have been awarded in the intervening period.
The Constitution provides that, “Subject to paragraph (2), members of the Commission shall be appointed for three years and shall be eligible for re-appointment, for one other term of office, not earlier than three years after the end of their first term. (2) Of those members first appointed, two shall hold office for four years.”
The first PPC was established in October 2016, which was more than 13 years after the Constitution was amended to cater for the procurement oversight body. The first members were Carol Corbin, Sukrishnalall Pasha, Emily Dodson, Ivor English and former Minister of Labour Nanda Kishore Gopaul. Corbin, a former project management professional and accountant with decades of experience working at the CARICOM Secretariat, was elected Chairperson of the Commission.
