Gov’t not involved in debarring of contractors – Minister Harmon

Georgetown, GINA, July 27, 2016

The Administration does not intentionally omit anyone in the selection of contractors for state projects as the Procurement Act describes the manner in which contracts are awarded. This was made clear to the media today, by Minister of State, Joseph Harmon at a post-Cabinet media briefing.

“When it [a contract] comes to Cabinet, it’s for Cabinet to say whether we object or we don’t object. Cabinet would not exercise that power to say who should get a contract or who should not get. We either say we object or we do not object.”

The Minister was at the time responding questions relative to the debarring of contractors who perform poor or shoddy work when awarded state contracts. According to the Minister, “our public procurement act circumscribes the manner in which government proceeds in the awards of these contracts. We do not deliberately exclude anybody but at the level of the evaluation, the evaluators will make an initial determination as to whether in fact the person satisfies the requirement of the contract, and I believe their performance in previous contracts must be taken into consideration.”

Meanwhile Minister Harmon also indicated that Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson reported to Cabinet that at a recently hosted a seminar for new contractors many concerns were raised by attendees.

Resulting from Minister Patterson’s report, Cabinet  mandated a committee headed by the Prime Minister and including Ministers of Legal Affairs, Public Infrastructure, Business,  Finance and Communities, to look at how best small contractors  can be incorporated into the public procurement process.

“It was agreed that every effort will be made to give legitimate support to small contractors for their involvement in the Public Procurement process,” Minister Harmon stated.