Golding welcomes bill to amend Public Procurement Act
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Opposition Spokesman on Finance, Mark Golding, has welcomed the Bill to amend the Public Procurement Act, which, he said, will serve to enhance the associated processes involved in the system.
“We support the thrust of this legislation and any attempts to improve it, and we also hope that as it is rolled out, the training to support it will be such that we will see far more efficient execution of the procurement processes in the public sector than have been achieved in the past,” he said.
Golding was making his contribution to the debate on the Bill in the House of Representatives yesterday.
The legislation seeks to regulate the procurement of goods, works and services by agencies.
Golding noted that the principal law, the Public Procurement Act, was passed in 2015 to introduce a modern procurement system with clear rules, with the necessary institutional base to ensure fairness, transparency and efficiency.
“It (Public Procurement Act) was a fairly dense piece of legislation attempting to codify into statute the principles that will guide procurement in the public sector and to establish various institutional mechanisms to underpin the procurement system,” he explained.
He noted that amending the Bill to further improve the procurement system is crucial, given how fundamental the system is to achieving the country’s economic objectives, and “because public sector investment and expenditure represents a large part of the national economy”.
The debate was suspended until the next sitting of the House of Representatives.