Procurement and Disposal of Public Property Act 2021 to come into effect from April 1: Minister Laville

Dominica: The Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property Act 2021 will come into effect from April 1, 2022, according to the latest announcement by the Minister of Public Works and the Digital Economy – Cassanni Laville.

The act was passed in the Dominica Assembly on December 1, 2021. The commencement date was approved by the Cabinet as per Section 86.

The Minister has also shared other updates about the 2021 act; while doing so, Laville underlined, “Section 18 provides for the minister of finance to make regulations to give effect to the provisions of the act. Cabinet has further proved the public procurement and disposal of the public property regulation 2022″.

According to Minister Laville, the prime goal of the act is to modernize the procurement of the public in accordance with principles of good governance and to establish the tension required for the implementation of the new legislation.

“The act also aims to encourage the participation of suppliers, contractors and consultants in public procurement proceedings”, the Minister of Public Works stated.

He further informed that the procurement criteria include:

• The requirement to publish is open.
• Competitive procurement opportunities.
• Content required to bidding documents.
• The required bid security.

The evaluation committee will examine the bids to ensure that the basic eligibility criteria has been fulfilled or not, as per the regulations.

He further informed, “The regulations provide for two stages of bidding for an open competitive procurement process – the technical evaluation and the final bid continuing prices and other financial details.

“Procurement method, detail, the term of consultancy contracts and requires the selection process based on quality and cost method. The quality and cost method uses a competitive process among short-listed consultants, which considers both the technical quality of the proposals and the cost of this service,” he added.

In the end, Minister Laville stated, “Regulation for the disposal of the public property is also outlined as well as procedures for challenge and review. A request for review will be assigned to the review council after it is large to the secretariat.”