The Dominica Parliament is meeting today and Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit will ask for permission to sanction more than $1.2-million from the Dominica Treasury.
Some of the highlights will be supplementary estimates of $93-million, which will include payment of $704,652 to H.H.V. Whitchurch to settle compensation for recovery of losses due to the change in the method of pricing of Liquid Petroleum Gas.
The Government will also be seeking parliament’s permission to provide funds for the Dominica State College and also to meet the cost of payment for former police commissioner Desmond Blanchard and his deputy Hansel Valaire. Both men were dismissed from the force after a commissioner of inquiry into the police force by the then Edison James-led United Workers Party (UWP) Administration.
Blanchard is at present a member of the police service commission.
Also down on the order paper are a number of other supplementary estimates for approval and questions from opposition members.
The government will also be presenting bills for the Procurement and Contract Administration Act and The Pensions (Amendment ) Act among others.
The Procurement Contract Act is expected to simplify, clarify and modernize public procurement making it more transparent to ensure fairness.
I have had the opportunity to read the draft Procurement and Contract Administration Bill. I think it is start in the right direction but the document is still deficient in a number of key areas.
The Bill falls short in providing a robust system for identifying and assessing potential risks of corrupt practices and for ensuring efficient management of the public procurement process.
In light of our thrust on eco-friendly operations, the Bill does not capture the themes of sustainable public procurement practices and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). There is also a sense that the Bill is void of the kind of sound mechanisms that is required to ensure that we have good governance in the management of our public procurement.
Nevertheless, in light of the relatively small size of government’s public procurement, it is hoped that the Bill will serve as a mechanism through which the issue of corruption in the use of scarce public resources can be minimized.
In that regard, the Bill essentially starts the necessary reform of government’s procurement process by improving transparency in government’s procurement, thereby potentially reducing high fiduciary risks, excess costs, wastage and other inefficiencies in the system. With increased transparency, integrity, fairness, effective competition, this will hopefully help ensure that our limited resources are used wisely in getting best value for money.
Ultimately, we need a sound public procurement framework whereby the ugly occurrences from transactions like the garbage bin bowbol would be minimized. In that regard, the Bill sets broad policy for acquiring goods and services from the best sources, in the right quantities and qualities at the right time, right price and as per specification but it is still unclear to what extent all of this is totally free from narrow political interest, influence and control.
Ideally, our public procurement framework must address some of the corruption and unethical practices that we have witnessed in recent times by high level public servants in collaboration with sleazy lawyers, Ministers of government and allegedly with their overseas based family members, who have engaged in public procurement transactions without establishing proper specifications of requirements, without conducting appropriate market research to get the best possible outcome from the market by ensuring that a variety of potential suppliers are identified early in the process and they all have fair and reasonable access to government’s public procurement opportunities.
Respectfully
Roseau Valley
bill of hoooray, am loving it? wonder what my parl rep have for me when this bill of act is done
labour powerr
Wow! This is what ROSEAU VALLEY wrote on Monday of this week DNO reported on the Legal Profesional Act.
“Like the Legal Professional Act, a modern, well drafted Public Procurement law would have held the Roseau Valley Parl Rep and current OECS ambassador accountable for their respective roles in questionable public procurement transactions like the garbage bin Bowbol. One wonders why the crucial pieces of legislation that can effectively tackle the growth of the wild cancer of corruption in Dominica are unimplemented by the Labour Administration.
I can now see why they are attacking Roseau Valley on DNO.
Nuff Respect to the Valley man or woman.
Something just don’t seem right about the colour of Parliament building. Just seem like a play doll house. what Gov’t Paints a govt building in Pink and white.?
Oh goshhh stawppp it!!! U just made me ‘ℓ☺ℓ’aloud In my office
What matters a bunch of lazy incompetent playboys. The speaker is a hot mess and lacks leadership, the Government side takes advantage of their majority in the house and simply shuts down the other side, who seem themselves to be asleep or uninterested. I find it disturbing that grown men charged with handling the affairs of the state can be so juvenile. These people have been forming d royal all morning long, and now they’ve moved a motion to suspend till 3pm. Sickening bunch the whole lot of them. The Minister of Communication himself doesn’t have any class whatsoever. Everything is an insult and gutter comment from a grown man, he should know it speaks to his character.
Really so the company owned by the touching minister and the minister brother combination will no longer get all the contracts including those for public works department?
Will yhe act make provisions for a level playing field and fair labor practices? Will yhe chinese still be able to avoid income taxes and avoid social security dues on government contracts?
The word is PARLIAMENT