Opposition Leader Pennelope Beckles-Robinson has launched a strong attack on the Government following the passage of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property (Amendment) Bill, 2026, warning that the changes could weaken oversight of public spending and expose taxpayers\u2019 money to greater risk. The legislation was debated in the Senate on Monday, September 28, after previously passing the House of Representatives by 25 votes to 10. In a statement following the Senate proceedings, Beckles-Robinson accused the Government of pushing through legislation despite concerns surrounding the proposed changes. \u201cThe simple fact is that their decisions have revealed the serious concerns surrounding this Bill and the extent to which it could be used to gut the Treasury and allow billions of dollars to be squandered by this UNC Government,\u201d Beckles-Robinson said. Her comments represent the Opposition\u2019s interpretation of the legislation and its potential consequences. Among the changes proposed by the Bill are expanded exemptions from aspects of the procurement framework, changes affecting the powers of the Office of Procurement Regulation, a shorter standstill period before certain contracts can proceed and an increase in the threshold for certain simplified procurements. Beckles-Robinson had previously raised particular concern about changes affecting the OPR. She argued that the amendments would reduce the regulator\u2019s ability to intervene directly in procurement proceedings and pointed to the OPR\u2019s intervention earlier this year involving proposed Housing Development Corporation contracts valued at approximately $3.4 billion. She has also questioned provisions dealing with procurement exemptions covering areas including energy, national security, public-private partnerships for public housing and certain emergencies. The Opposition Leader further criticised the Government over the Senate proceedings, arguing that the difficulty some Independent Senators had in supporting the legislation should itself be treated as a warning about the amendments. Beckles-Robinson described herself as \u201coutraged\u201d by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar\u2019s Government and accused the administration of creating conditions that could lead to wasteful public spending. The Government has rejected the Opposition\u2019s interpretation of the amendments. During the Senate debate, Minister in the Ministry of Finance Kennedy Swaratsingh said the changes are intended to make the procurement system more efficient while maintaining accountability. Addressing changes to the procurement standstill period, he argued that contractors would retain sufficient time to pursue reviews and challenges without unnecessarily delaying government programmes, capital projects, essential services and contractual obligations. Finance Minister Davendranath Tancoo has also defended the legislation, arguing that the existing procurement framework contains practical bottlenecks and overly rigid procedures. He has said the amendments are intended to improve the implementation of government programmes and create greater opportunities for smaller businesses. The dispute centres on the balance between speeding up public procurement and maintaining independent oversight of how taxpayers\u2019 money is spent. For Beckles-Robinson, the amendments move that balance in the wrong direction. \u201cThe UNC slept well last night as it moved forward with a Bill that could open the door to gutting the Treasury,\u201d she said, describing the situation as a \u201cUNC nightmare\u201d for Trinidad and Tobago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Beckles Warns Procurement Changes Could Open Door To Gutting Trinidad And Tobago\u2019s Treasury<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trinidad-and-tobago"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}