26/09/2026
🚨 TTTI CALLS FOR A PAUSE ON THE PROCUREMENT AMENDMENT BILL, 2026
The T&T Transparency Institute (TTTI) calls on the Government to pause further passage of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property (Amendment) Bill, 2026, and review its amendments that would widen exemptions and restrict independent oversight.
Citizens deserve timely services and demonstrable value for public money. Parliament should require convincing evidence that the proposed changes will improve delivery while maintaining effective safeguards.
Unnecessary procurement delays carry real costs. TTTI supports simpler procedures, clear timelines and fair access for small businesses. Government should identify the causes of delay and explain why improvements in planning, staffing, training and digital systems would be insufficient. A claim of greater efficiency does not, by itself, justify removing safeguards.
🔎 What the Bill would change
• More spending outside the law.
Procurement for energy, national security and public housing built through public-private partnerships would be exempt from the Act, with no spending limit and no emergency condition attached. Emergency purchases would also be exempt, and “emergency” would include risks to “business continuity” – a broad test. Urgent needs must be met quickly, but poor planning should not become a way around competition.
• Ministers could create new exemptions without the regulator.
Today, a Minister needs the recommendation or agreement of the Office of Procurement Regulation (OPR), the independent procurement watchdog, to exempt other spending. The Bill removes that check. Parliament could still annul an exemption, but the independent voice would be lost.
• The OPR could investigate, but not act.
After a complaint or investigation, the OPR could no longer pause a procurement, order a re-evaluation or cancel an award. Its findings would be “advisory”, and public bodies could ignore them. Suppliers could still formally challenge an award, but where no supplier does, serious problems could go uncorrected. A regulator that can only write a letter is not a regulator.
• Bigger purchases, fewer rules.
The detailed 2024 rules for smaller purchases (up to TT$1 million) would be scrapped. Instead, Permanent Secretaries and heads of State bodies could buy up to TT$2 million, and municipal CEOs up to TT$500,000, outside the Act – with only a report to the OPR after the contract is awarded.
Reporting after the fact is no substitute for rules on how the contract is awarded.
• Less time and more risk for businesses that object.
The window to challenge an unfair award would shrink from 10–15 working days to 5–10, and a business that challenges could be ordered to pay the State’s legal costs. That could discourage smaller suppliers from raising legitimate concerns.
These changes should not be viewed in isolation. Taken together, they materially shift the balance of the procurement framework away from preventative oversight and towards reporting and remedies after decisions have already been made.
⚖️ Why it matters
Procurement rules are not red tape. They are how the public purse is protected.
Competition, publication and written reasons let contractors see that the process was fair, let citizens follow the money, and hold officials to account when something goes wrong.
Good governance is the foundation of a country that works. It means money spent openly, decisions that can be questioned and institutions with the independence and the power to say no.
Corruption thrives where contracts are hidden, oversight is optional and consequences are negotiable. Prevention is cheaper than prosecution, and the best prevention is a strong rulebook, applied to everyone, with a regulator that can act before the money is gone.
📢 TTTI calls on the Government and Parliament to:
• Pause further passage and consult the OPR, civil society and businesses on evidence of delays and targeted remedies.
• Replace broad sector exemptions with narrowly justified exceptions subject to enforceable safeguards and independent oversight.
• Retain OPR recommendation or agreement for additional ministerial exemptions and require published reasons.
• Preserve or replace the Simplified Procurement Regulations with proportionate, enforceable rules before revoking them.
• Provide effective corrective powers for public-interest investigations, with clear timelines, written reasons and accessible review.
• Require prompt publication of exempt contract details, narrowly justified confidentiality protections and full access for independent oversight.
• Retain the existing standstill period pending evidence for change, and protect reasonably arguable, good-faith challenges from disproportionate costs.
• Require documented justification and approvals for emergency procurement, with prompt independent audit.
• Proclaim and implement the Whistleblower Protection Act.
These standards must apply under every administration. Parliament should insist on reform that improves delivery and keeps decision-makers answerable to the public.
Public money does not become less public because a contract is exempt.
