Pauline Chase was today unanimously elected as the Chairperson of the Public Procurement Commission and Berkley Wickham as Deputy Chairperson.
In a brief statement issued today, the PPC said the decision was taken at the first meeting of the fully constituted commission.
Chase was last Friday sworn in before President Irfaan Ali as the fifth member of the PPC, following the earlier appointments of Wickham, Joel Bhagwandin, Rajnarine Singh and Diana Rajkumar.
There has been no PPC since October of 2020 and billions of dollars’ in public works contracts have been awarded in the intervening period. The Constitution provides that, “Subject to paragraph (2), members of the Commission shall be appointed for three years and shall be eligible for re-appointment, for one other term of office, not earlier than three years after the end of their first term. (2) Of those members first appointed, two shall hold office for four years.”
The first PPC was established in October 2016, which was more than 13 years after the Constitution was amended to cater for the procurement oversight body. The first members were Carol Corbin, Sukrishnalall Pasha, Emily Dodson, Ivor English and former Minister of Labour Nanda Kishore Gopaul. Corbin, a former project management professional and accountant with decades of experience working at the CARICOM Secretariat, was elected Chairperson of the Commission.
