JCC warns changes could weaken safeguards

Akash Sama­roo

Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil for the Con­struc­tion In­dus­try (JCC) pres­i­dent Fazir Khan is warn­ing that Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed amend­ments to the pub­lic pro­cure­ment law could weak­en safe­guards in­tend­ed to pro­tect tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey, even as he ac­knowl­edges that the cur­rent sys­tem needs re­form.

Khan said the JCC sup­ports ef­forts to make pub­lic pro­cure­ment faster and less bur­den­some, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the de­mands of in­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment, but ar­gued that ef­fi­cien­cy should not come at the ex­pense of trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and fair­ness.