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Minister of Blue Economy and Marine Conservation, Andre Perez, is advocating for an increase to the current threshold, which allows Chief Executive Officers to approve contracts and purchases of up to ten thousand dollars. Any expenditure exceeding that amount must proceed through additional procurement and oversight processes. Perez argues that the threshold has remained unchanged despite significant increases in the cost of goods and services over the years, making the current limit less practical for the day-to-day operations of government ministries.
Andre Perez, Minister of Blue Economy: “I can speak to you from a business standpoint. I’m a businessman. I can speak to you that when it comes to managing a company or a corporation, you have to have a place whereby if your company is growing, let me tell you something, the government, the national budget is growing. We have more payments to make, the Coast Guard has grown, the BDF has grown, my ministry is growing as well. So for me as a businessman, if I’m going to be engaging and my CEO cannot make any decision under the threshold of $10,000 and everything has to go through us and the payments are getting bigger, the increase of cost on just about everything then it’s time for us to look at maybe the increase of the threshold from maybe $10,000 to $15,000. Because it might very well turn out that these things payments need to be made. I mean you fill a gas tank….”
Reporter: But isn’t that abuse though Minister.
Andre Perez, Minister of Blue Economy: “No no. You asked me for a comment. I’m saying from a business standpoint if there needs to be an increase, I’m not saying going to $50,000 but again the CEOs need to make the decisions. As it relates to abuse that’s speculation but I’m saying as a business person you fill a gas tank now you used to fill a gas tank with $100 you fill a gas tank for $300 now. So if you authorize a person with a vehicle that you’re going to put $100 you’re forcing that person to put quarter tank or half tank. So as it relates to abuse and so let’s not get into comments for that or speculations.”
With that said, and with Cabinet ordering a review of the procurement rules, Love News asked Cabinet Minister Julius Espat if he agrees in the call for a higher threshold when it comes to public procurement by CEOs.
Julis Espat, Minister of Home Affairs: “I don’t know enough as to how he handles his ministry. We have a philosophy in our ministry, if we find out what the rules are and we try as best as possible to work within that that’s how the public service is. If you increase it it has its positive things but it also brings negative things as we are seeing there. So, a whole restructuring needs to be done. My complaint is that we are following rules and we are not sure which ones are the right ones. I give you a clear example in the way the public services work. You have the FARA which is what governs how you administer and the rules and everything else. But then you have your financial orders and then you have your store orders. And if you look at three of them, they’re identifying the same concern that you want to deal with but three of them have a different approach and they instruct you to do it differently. Why? Because the public service system is inherited from before independence and we’ve been tweaking it but not as a whole. And we still have, you have this new technological way of doing things and we’re still falling behind. So a piecemeal approach will create problems. It has to be properly analyzed. We still have the problem of having CEOs or not permanent secretaries. So there’s a lot of work to be done. That the threshold should be raised I wouldn’t be able to answer that. Every ministry is different. Every ministry is different. Some ministries don’t need to do that.”
During this week’s Cabinet meeting, ministers agreed that the existing Government Procurement Rules, along with the Financial Orders of 1965 and the Stores Orders of 1968, require urgent modernization. Whether Perez’s proposal to raise the approval threshold for Chief Executive Officers will form part of those reforms remains unclear. The revision comes as a result of the recent revelations of contracts and multi-million-dollar payments made to Minister Oscar Mira’s sister, Jenny Mira and his brothers, Brian and Keith Mira among other relatives.
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