The Government and Opposition have approved the names of five persons who will form the new Public Procurement Commission (PPC).

Attorney-at-Law and President of the Guyana Bar Association Pauline Chase, Joel Bhagwandin, Rajnarain Singh, Berkeley Wickham and Diana Rajkumar will sit as new Commissioners on the PPC.

Three of the nominees came from the Government side while the other two came from the Opposition.

The nomination required a two-thirds majority vote before approval.

Both sides offered their full support to the motion.

Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and Opposition MP Jermaine Figeuria thanked the last Procurement Commission for setting the groundwork for the new Commission.

He reminded the National Assembly that it was under the former APNU+AFC government that the Commission became operational and started to do real work.

MP Figueira said that the government needs to now honour its obligations to the former PPC members who are still to be paid outstanding monies.

“It is my hope that good sense prevails and those former members Mr. Speaker can be given their rightly deserved dues. Mr. Speaker, it is important to bring to this house that it was under the coalition administration that this very important Constitutional Commission became realized,” Figueira said.

In making the case for the Procurement Commission, Governance Minister, Gail Teixeira highlighted the importance of the Commission to transparency, noting that the country cannot go on longer without the Commission being in place.

“We have had almost two years without a PPC and I believe that the process that we went through, I think we have found some very good Guyanese to be able to take this responsibility and continue the work of the PPC,” Teixeira said as she moved the motion for the five names to be considered.

The Public Procurement Commission which monitors public procurement to ensure the principles of fairness, equity, value for money, and competition are upheld and to ensure that the procedures of public procurement are executed in accordance with the laws of Guyana, has not been in place since October 2019.

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