by Jolene Toves

Guam - When it comes to the Government of Guam, hearing about a procurement taking a long time or being stalled because of a vendor protest is something that has occurred many times over. Attorney John Thos Brown addressed Rotarians Thursday afternoon, shedding some light as to why this occurs as often as it does.

"GovGuam has a difficulty understanding the difference between lore which is the way they have always done it and law which is the way they should do it," said Brown.

While procurement involves the commercial sector it is not a commercial activity and those who think of it in those terms miss the rules according to Brown, his focus is in the GovGuam procurement and says the biggest single problem GovGuam has is in writing specifications. "If they don't identify the needs well they can't write specifications even identifying your needs well doesn't always help you write specifications," he explained.

Brown says he has been approached by many government employees who express their frustration in not being able to formulate a good procurement product or service.

"We don't buy things like rocket ships and nuclear submarines we buy things that we have been buying for decades we should know now how to make specifications so we don't get into all these arguments about ambiguities whether its geared to one particular provider or what we should be past that," said Brown, adding that getting past the ambiguities means getting past fifty percent of our problems.

For more information on procurement you can visit Brown's website at bloggeddowninprocurement.blogspot.com.