BCCI Says Higher Procurement Threshold Alone Won’t Prevent Abuse

The Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry says increasing Government’s ten-thousand-dollar procurement threshold would not, by itself, prevent abuse.  As it stands, Chief executive officers can currently approve certain purchases of up to ten thousand dollars, while larger expenditures require additional oversight. The SmartStream disclosures raised concerns that transactions may have been divided into smaller payments to avoid that scrutiny.  Blue Economy Minister Andre Perez has suggested increasing the limit to fifteen thousand dollars, while Prime Minister John Briceño has agreed that it should be reviewed. BCCI Chief Executive Officer Kim Aikman, however, says the existing threshold is reasonable if the rules are properly enforced.

Kim Aikman, Chief Executive Officer, BCCI: “The letter to the Prime Minister did not specifically talk about the threshold. We believe that it’s not about the threshold at all. I mean, and I don’t think that we are advocating to increase the threshold. The $10,000 is fine as long as the processes and procedures are upheld. I mean, in the private sector, if I am spending more than $1,000 I will have to seek further authority. So the process has to happen and that is what is not happening now. Also in the private sector, we have a system that we call transvision that flags anything over a certain amount or if you are doing a transaction without the proper approvals it flags it and then you have to go back and get all the processes in place. So in our view it’s really not about the threshold. As the President said earlier, it’s the people behind, because I think the systems are there, they can be tweaked, it’s just how we do it. It’s the people. “

Government has proposed a Central Procurement Unit and digital portal to monitor purchases across ministries. No revised threshold has been formally announced.