A conflict between Bahrain's Shura Council and parliament on what ministries, government organisations and government-owned companies should be obliged to report to the Tender Board could now delay new legislation.

Council members voiced two major differences with MPs at yesterday's debate over parliament's proposal to halve amounts at which tenders have to be reported to the Tender Board, saying that it would delay the progress of tenders and related projects.

Parliament voted in March to oblige ministries and government organisations to report tenders above BD25,000, halving the original amount proposed by the government, under amendments to the original tenders law. They also voted to have government-owned companies report their tenders if they are above BD50,000, instead of the BD100,000 proposed by the government.

Under the current tender law, all have to report to the board if their tenders are more than BD10,000.

The council also yesterday voted to rename the Tender Board the Tenders and Purchase Board, rather than the Tenders and Auctions Board proposed by parliament.

Present at yesterday's session was Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Tender Board chairman Dr Nizar Al Baharna, who welcomed the council's amendments, saying that they would be beneficial to the board's future work.

Council financial and economic affairs committee secretary Saud Kanoo said that the council's amendments were done carefully to ensure that work in the board was improved to meet the future, ensuring the progress of work becomes smoother.

"The prices of services, projects and purchase has gone up significantly and it is a wrong approach by parliament just to have them (the reportable benchmarks) increased by BD15,000 for ministries and BD40,000 for government-owned companies," he said.

"Today's basic transactions required by ministries are around BD15,000 and those of companies are around BD50,000, so having them go through the lengthy tendering process required by the board, means automatically that things get delayed."

Kanoo said that parliament had a point in wanting tenders to be monitored throughout, but that was already achieved by the Financial Audit Bureau.

"Tenders are already being done in a transparent manner, whether through the board or individually and are awarded according to the best prices and technical aspects, so halving the (reportable) amounts is illogical."

The amendments will be now studied in parliament, before being voted on.

If parliament and the council each insist on their amendments, by-laws dictate that the issue should go before both chambers at a full National Assembly meeting.

However, this has never happened since parliament began in 2002, despite several stalemates over proposed legislation, which has since been left on file.

Parliament public utilities and environment affairs committee chairman Jawad Fairooz revealed last Tuesday that 30 laws have been left pending due to conflict between the chambers since 2006.-TradeArabia News Service