Paula Lindo
OPPOSITION Senator Wade Mark is describing as “legalised thievery” the passing of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property (Amendment) Bill, 2020 on Friday.
Mark said this move is part of the actions of what he described as an oppressive government “led by an emerging dictator who is following in the footsteps of his counterpart in Venezuela.”
“Just Friday gone you have what can only be described as legalised thievery by the PNM by they bringing a piece of legislation to the Parliament to allow the government to engage in direct negotiations with other governments, they call it government to government contracts, and then the private-public partnership, which involves financial services, all of these things they want to remove from the purview of the procurement regulator.”
He accused the Prime Minister of being hypocritical in passing the legislation after accusing the People’s Partnership of corruption in 2015.
“He told the country when he got into power, he’s going to implement procurement legislation, he’s going to do everything to deal with this particular scourge. Today you have that same shameless Prime Minister coming to the Parliament to gut and to rip and to butcher a piece of legislation that has given power to the procurement regulator to look at the interest of the people in the area of transparency, accountability, integrity and value for money. I am saying it is a very dark day in our country when you have a Prime Minister who could be two-tongued in his utterances, yesterday was yesterday and today is today and it is shameless.”
He was speaking on Sunday after voting in UNC’s internal elections.
