Former auditor general Anand Goolsarran believes that the Cabinet is required to object to the award of a contract if it determines that the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) failed to comply with the applicable procurement procedures.
In his Accountability Watch column today, Goolsarran highlighted that Section 54 paragraph 2 of the Public Procurement Act 2003 requires the “Cabinet to object to the award of the procurement contract if it determines that the procuring entity failed to comply with applicable procurement procedures”. One example, which Goolsarran dealt with in today’s column was the award of the pump station contract to Tepui Inc, which did not have the requisite experience.
Goolsarran noted that Section 51 (1) of the Act requires the Cabinet and the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) “to review annually the Cabinet’s threshold for review of procurements, intending to increase that threshold over time to promote the goal of progressively phasing out Cabinet involvement and decentralizing the procurement processes”.
