The Public Procurement Commission (PPC) was today sworn-in by President Dr Irfaan Ali at the Office of the President.
The PPC is a five-member commission but only four persons took the oath to serve for the next three years.
They include Financial Analyst, Joel Bhagwandin; former Chairman of the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board, Berkley Wickham; AFC Executive Member, Dianna Rajcumar; and Rajnarine Singh.
The fifth person, Attorney-at-Law Pauline Chase will sworn-in by next week.
Delivering remarks at the simple ceremony, President Ali noted that important to the transformation is accountability and systems to allow for public expenditure to be handled in a transparent manner.
“This government has embarked on a development path that is transformative. Important to that transformation are issues of public accountability, transparency and ensuring that the institutional mechanisms and systems that allows public expenditure to occur are not only strong but they are continually renewed. The job of the Public Procurement Commission is one that adds to that tier of institutional mechanism that we have established in our country to ensure oversight of public financing, in this case, financing,” the Head of State said.
Pauline Chase currently serves as President of the Guyana Bar Association (GBA), while Bhagwandin is the former director of the Private Sector Commission (PSC). Along with Singh, these three were selected as the Government-nominated candidates.
Up until 2021, Wickham served as the Chairman of NPTAB. Rajkumar is an AFC Executive member and under the APNU/AFC Government, she was the personal assistant to former Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan.
The PPC has the vital role of overseeing contract approvals and mediating contractor complaints. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is responsible for approving members of this Commission, as well as requesting background checks on candidates, had been engaged in the process of seeking members since last year, before the five names were finally arrived at in January.
