A major national consultation on public procurement gets underway in Barbados today. The one-day consultation is to examine the Draft CARICOM Model Bill to facilitate the national implementation of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) Public Procurement Regime. The proposed regime aims to establish an integrated and single public procurement space for Member States. Representatives of public and private sector organizations as well as procuring entities are attending the consultation at the Blue Horizon Hotel. This activity is part of a project that is facilitated under the 10th European Development Fund CSME Economic Integration Programme. 

Participants will look at and discuss the Draft CARICOM Model Bill which sets out the implementation for the provisions of the protocol. It is anticipated that coming out of this national consultation, recommendations will be made on national legislation to implement the regime. Resource persons from the CARICOM Secretariat’s CSME Unit are conducting the activity. Apart from this Model Bill, the CSME Public Procurement Regime includes: the Framework Regional Integration Policy (FRIP) on Public Procurement; the Draft CSME Policy on Public Procurement; Procurement Standard Operating Procedures (PSOPs); Standard Bidding Documents (SBDs); and the Community Public Procurement Notice Board (CPPNB) which is in its early stages.

This national consultation in Barbados is the first in a series of such an exercise that will be conducted in other Member States over the coming months. It is hoped that all Member States will have completed their respective consultations by December 2016.