CASTRIES, St. Lucia, CMC – St. Lucia has signaled its interest in signing the protocol governing public procurement in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Single Market and Economy (CSME).
The CSME allows for the free movement of services, goods, skills, and labor across most of the 15-member regional integration movement.
Earlier this month, Castries hosted the second CARICOM Permanent Joint Council on Public Procurement (PJCPP) meeting. A statement posted on the St. Lucia government website on Monday said, At the same time, the island “has not yet signed the protocol, it participated as an observer during the meeting, signaling its interest and commitment to the deliberations.”
During the meeting, the director of the Barbados-based CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) Unit, Titus Preville, a former senior St. Lucia public servant, highlighted the significance of the PJCPP, noting that it would focus on adopting its rules of procedure. Additionally, the meeting aimed to approve proposals encompassing rules, guidelines, norms, and standards outlined in the protocol for administering public procurement.
Furthermore, the PJCPP intended to scrutinize its work program for 2024 to 2026, along with proposals for integrating E-Procurement into the Community Public Procurement Notice Board.
Preville said that seven member states, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname, have signed the protocol on public procurement. The declaration to provisionally apply the protocol since it was approved by the Conference of Heads of Government in St. Kitts and Nevis in 2019.
“Of the seven, Barbados and Belize have moved to ratify the protocol. In keeping with article 36 of the protocol, once at least five member states have signed the protocol and the declaration to provisionally apply it, the protocol is determined to be provisionally applied among these parties.
He added that the permanent joint council can be established under Article 30 of the protocol due to that provisional application.
Permanent Secretary in the Department of Finance, Francis Fontenelle, acknowledged that while St. Lucia still needs to sign the protocol, the country has made significant strides in modernizing its procurement reform processes.
He said the island had introduced a new Public Procurement Act, accompanying regulations, and standardized tender documents to streamline compliance. Additionally, an E-Procurement Platform has been implemented to enhance accessibility, record-keeping, and reporting, aligning with parallel efforts within the CSME.
“We are very grateful that we are afforded observer status to the functioning of the Permanent Joint Council. This affords us insight into the direction in which the concept of regionally integrated public procurement is headed. We wish to recognize the contributions made by the CARICOM Secretariat and the CSME Unit to developing public procurement in the region.”
The Permanent Joint Council, consisting of senior trade and public procurement specialists from member states, is tasked with implementing the provisions outlined in the community protocol on public procurement.
This council oversees the execution of the protocol’s mandates and regularly reports to the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) on the protocol’s performance.
“Now is the time for the remaining CARICOM and CSME member states to sign the protocol and contribute to the design of the framework that will govern the parties to the protocol in the future,” said Preville.
Fontenelle said St. Lucia will continue to pursue internal steps to ensure that the policies are “sufficiently understood and accepted before assimilation into our policy framework.
“In essence, we want all concerned parties to be comfortable that this is acceptable to us and that it is not being adopted solely to meet an external requirement,” Fontenelle said.
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