GOJ Procurement Awards to Be Introduced

In a bid to change the culture around procurement in the public service, a ‘Government of Jamaica (GOJ) Procurement Awards’ is to be introduced that will celebrate excellence in procurement.

“Procurement was, for many, a bad word, but the country cannot move ahead like that. We’re going to honour and reward procurement leadership, procurement efficiency, and procurement innovation across the 200 ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs),” said Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Dr. the Hon. Nigel Clarke.

He was making the opening presentation in the 2024/25 Budget Debate in the House of Representatives, today (March 12).

The Minister said that the existing Corporate Governance Award has played a key role in improving corporate governance over time, and he believes that the GOJ Procurement Awards will have the same cultural impact.

Dr. Clarke gave details as to how the procurement process within government is being transformed, noting that the Ministry has now published a series of time-efficiency benchmarks, which will form the basis of its reporting going forward.

These benchmarks challenge the status quo by directing the expected time to be taken in each stage of procurement, correcting for contingent issues such as resources, contract and volume, and are to hold procuring entities to higher standards of efficiency, and stimulate internal or entity-level reform.

“What gets measured, gets done,” the Minister said, while pointing out that the aim is to make all results available for members of the public to examine how various procuring entities are performing on the procurement metric and how more efficiencies can be attained.