Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Early in the life of this Assembly, the Department of Finance raised the solesource procurement threshold for goods and services to $10,000 and $25,000 respectively. This means that those GNWT employees with the appropriate purchasing authority can purchase an item worth less than $10,000 without going to RFP and have no reporting on that spending. I have had some constituents who support this increase, but I have also had some who are very concerned with it. This has been raised in the House numerous times by multiple MLAs. My first question is: it was my understanding that the increased thresholds were going to be reviewed by the end of this fiscal year. If that review has been completed, I would like the Minister to share those findings with the House. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member is correct. We did raise the limits. It has been well received by a lot of businesses across the NWT. Of course, there are always concerns with a lot of the initiatives that we take on. I have committed the Department of Finance to review the impact of the increase. The procurement committee is just developing the terms of reference and are looking at getting an independent contractor to review the policy.
I have a feeling that the procurement committee might hate me by the end of this Assembly. I am going to switch around my questions here. I am going to jump to the third one that I provided to the Minister. So, the increase has resulted in many government purchases not going to RFP, which means that, small businesses, not only do they not have a chance to bid on these, they do not even know these are going out. Purchases might be being made based on friendships, you know: the person in the government, his buddy might own a store, and that is where they get these purchases from. When you are looking at $10,000 per item, that can add up. Will the Minister commit to looking at what impact these increased thresholds have had on small businesses?
First of all, we would like to think that the folks who are working for the GNWT first of all will look at getting value for money in the products. If there are situations such as the Member described, then I would not approve of that and I would have to get to the bottom of it and do an investigation into using friends and such. Going back to the Member's question, that could be one of the parts of the review, is to have a look at how it has impacted smaller businesses.
He mentioned value for money. That is the other thing I am concerned about. The public is not aware of these purchases. We do not know what is going on, and the public often is the one pointing out if we are not getting good value for money. You know, there are a lot of people out there who pay attention to what we do. I suppose, since they are still determining the terms of reference, how is this committee going to ensure that we are getting value for money? What is the plan going forward?
As part of the review and in my conversation that I will have with the department, I want to ensure that the government gets value for money. If it means a different type of reporting, then that is something that I would commit to having a discussion with my officials about because, at the end of the day, I want to ensure that the government gets value money and there are also opportunities for a lot of smaller businesses to take advantage of some of the sole-source contracts that we have.
Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I mentioned yesterday that I had over half a dozen business owners and representatives in my office discussing procurement. This was one of the major themes that we discussed, so I'm going to sit down with the Minister and bring up some of those specific examples so I can show him what I mean about value for money. I guess I would like to know: when can we expect this review to be completed and presented to the House? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I look forward to having the conversation with the Member because we're always interested in some of the concerns that are raised across the Northwest Territories. Not only on this particular issue, but other issues. I look forward to having that conversation. I will commit that I will follow up on any discussions that we may have as far as the timeline. As I said before, we're developing the terms of references and, as I become aware of the timeline when we actually get this out, I will keep the Member and this House informed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
