By Sue-Ann Wayow
PRIME Minister Dr Keith Rowley continues to defend the proposed amendments to the Public Procurement Act that will be brought to the Parliament on Wednesday.
He said, “A government has to do what a government has to do.”
Speaking to I95.5 FM, Dr Rowley used the water pipeline that recently imploded at the Caroni Water Treatment plant as an example.
He said, “You would not want to know what is going to happen in Trinidad and Tobago if that ruptured line had remained here in the timeframe with what is required with over a quarter million people not having water.”
“And the same people that turn around and ask the government just what you are doing, telling me that I can’t get water because you are waiting for a tender to come in, in 30 days and to be evaluated in 14 days and to have another seven days and then a ten days standstill while I can’t get a bucket of water.”
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He accused the Opposition of misrepresenting information to make the government look like “the people’s enemy.”
And speaking on Tuesday at a political meeting in Siparia, Dr Rowley said, “Every single day, somewhere in the Government, there are many areas in the government where you have to do procurement of some kind or the other, you have to get things every single day in the Government.
“You can’t wait until September when the Parliament come back in, September to do that because in the intervening period we have to breathe, we have to work, the country has to go on.”
The topic of the bill has been a main matter of discussion for both him and Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar since July 9, when Member of Parliament for Barataria/San Juan Saddam Hosein raised the issue of exemption at an Opposition press briefing and two pre-action protocol letters sent to both Attorney General Reginald Armour and Finance Minister Colm Imbert.
Speaking on Monday night in Princes Town Persad-Bissessar said, “The Amended Procurement law, cast under my government, it took eight years, they have only just proclaimed and they are already pulling it back.”
She pledged then, “We will say more of this in Parliament on Wednesday, but I will tell you that your UNC members in Parliament will not support this killing, butchering, massacring of the procurement law!”
