Business View Caribbean - August 2015 23
transparency and accountability, we felt that the
public procurement regime should have been over-
hauled and that has been done,” he said.
A Public Procurement Bill was passed in Parliament
in early July.
Mr. Dalley said for the last fiscal year, 378 consulting
contracts were procured on behalf of the Jamaican
government, valued at $1.459 billion. Procurement
activities for goods were valued at $48 billion; $8.49
billion for services and for works, approximately $9
billion. Procurement activities for insurance servic-
es were valued at $773.3 million.
The Minister said staff from the Ministry and its
agencies have been trained and will be given inter-
nationally-recognized certification.
Mr. Dalley said this should put the Government of
Jamaica in a position, “where we will have a group
of skilled, trained and certified public procurement
officers that can (fully) move us into the 21stCen-
tury.”
“This is not being done in isolation. This is what
public sector transformation is all about; how we do
business, the ease in doing business and how the
people of Jamaica, our customers, have access to
the system of governance,” he added.
\Features of the E-Procurement Portal include stan-
dardized procurement practices in line with interna-
tional best practices; effective management of the
entire procurement life cycle; and easy access to
information. There will also be wider supplier par-
ticipation in procurement proceedings, as well as
improved procurement statistics.
The development of the portal was done through
funding by the Inter-American Development Bank
(IDB).
