NASSAU, The Bahamas - Prime Minister and Minister of Finance the Hon. Philip Davis tabled the Public Procurement Bill 2022, in the House of Assembly on Wednesday, October 5, 2022.

This came on the heels of the launch of GoBonfire eProcurement Platform through which goods and services for all government and quasi-government will be sourced, with the objective of providing a higher level of accountability.

The eProcurement Platform, a milestone in governance, was presented by Prime Minister Davis at Margaritaville Beach Resort, Compass Rose Ballroom, on Monday, October 3, 2022.

As he tabled the Bill during the morning session of parliament on October 5, the prime minister explained that the proposed Bill, when enacted would repeal and replace the Public Procurement Act 2021.

“The Bill is the first of several Bills, which will be brought to the House to either amend or repeal legislation which was rushed through with little thought about the practical consequences on the governance process,” he said.

The prime minister also debunked beliefs of his administration’s stance on public procurement, stating that much if it is untrue.

“This administration is committed to fair and transparent public procurement. However, more importantly, as I said at the launch of the new procurement portal on Monday, we believe that public procurement, when used correctly, is a tool to correct some of the historical inequalities in our system.  In other words, there is space in every procurement framework for affirmative action,” he told parliament.

He explained that fair and transparent procurement is not just publishing the names of contract awardees but ensuring that a process is followed which demonstrates value for money concerning the use of taxpayers’ funds.

“As we have seen concerning the pandemic-related expenditure, this seems to be a forgotten concept in Government during the last administration,” he said.

The primary objectives of the Bill are:

1. To increase transparency by expanding the number of procurement contracts subject to tender committee review;
2. To create greater administrative efficiency by increasing financial thresholds for committee review, board review, and cabinet review;
3. To discourage and detect procurement process abuse by the expansion of control mechanisms; and,
4. To encourage the development of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), women-owned businesses, youth-owned and Family Island businesses.

Some critical parts of the Bill reflect that the application of the Act has been revised to exclude additional areas that are not procured due to their nature. The other excluded areas are financial consultancy concerning public debt, audit services, contracts entered into by the Government in support of or pursuant to an international treaty, accord or convention or other international multilateral agreement, an agreement between the Government and an international funding agency, whose procurement rules are mandatorily applied to any procurement contracts partially or wholly funded by monies loaned or advanced pursuant to such agreement.

“The Procurement Review Tribunal has been removed to decrease administrative burdens and costs of establishing another appeal commission when existing bodies’ remit may be expanded to cover the review of complaints,” the prime minister said. “Instead, a bidder may appeal to the Tax Appeal Commission, and their remit will be expanded in a forthcoming amendment to the Tax Appeal Commission Act.”

He said given the significant changes, the reorganization and revision of material provisions relating to bidding methods, and the introduction of several new clauses and definitions, it was determined that repealing the Act would be a better approach than amending the Act.

“The Government intends to receive comments from Civil Society on this legislation.   Comments from multilateral financial institutions have been received and largely incorporated into this Bill,” the prime minister said.