Central Procurement Office

The Central Procurement Office was established by the Cayman Islands Government in early 2015 to focus on three (3) areas:

  1. To develop a new Procurement Law and the follow-on regulations, policies and procedures.
  2. To establish a central procurement function with new standards, tools, and templates.
  3. To identify areas of savings potential and to pursue savings targets by setting up government-wide contracts in appropriate areas and using different procurement methods.

The initiative began in May 2012 when the Deputy Governor, Franz Manderson established a Working Group to develop a new framework for procurement and report back to the Deputy Governor. The Working Group was chaired by Mrs. Karin Thompson the Chair of the Commission for Standards in Public Life. Other Members of the Working Group were representatives from the Ministry of Finance (Michael Nixon), Deputy Governor’s Office (Peter Gough), Cabinet Office (Tim Hubbell) Central Tenders Committee (Nick Freeland), a Chief Officer (Alan Jones) with experience in procurement and a Member from the Commission for Standards in Public Life (Nyda Flatley), plus Max Jones, Reshma Sharma and Tom Van Zanten.

The Working Group created a Procurement Sub-Committee (PSC) in August, 2012 to report back with recommendations on how to improve government’s existing procurement system.

In January 2013 the report of the PSC “Government Procurement in the Cayman Islands”, recommended the creation of a central procurement office, improvements in procurement processes, enhanced oversight of procurement processes and leveraging of shared contracts.

In August 2013, Cabinet granted approval to the adoption of the Report and most of its recommendations. Cabinet authorized the creation of and placement of a three (3) person central procurement office in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. Cabinet further directed that the approved recommendations form the drafting instructions for a new Procurement Law. 

In February 2015, the Government appointed a Director of Procurement to guide and carryout the recommendations approved by Cabinet.