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Evaluation team determined Motilall had technical expertise – Jagdeo
Head of State Bharrat Jagdeo (left) shakes hands with Makeshwar Fip Motilall
“Not for me to be satisfied…If you award contracts based on Jagdeo being satisfied or not you would have not just a dictatorship you would have a subjective system for assessing people’s bids.”
This notion was expressed by Head of State Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday when asked if he was satisfied with the road construction experience of Makeshwar Fip Motilall who was awarded a US$15M road contract in preparation for the Amaila Falls Hydro Electric Project.
Ever since the announcement of that award there has been intense scrutiny of Motilall’s capability to undertake such a project.
Jagdeo told media operatives that, “In this case from all that I have gathered from the technical evaluation team… and these are technical people…. they said that the appropriate experience was there.”
He added that the closest bid to that of Motilall was higher by US$5M, “So it is clearly the cheapest bid and the technical team who are engineers and financial analysts determined that he had the technical expertise…it is not for Jagdeo to be satisfied.”
Jagdeo explained that it was insisted upon that there be a public tender and as such one would assume, “that once you have a public tender and the tenders are all open in public then you can adjudicate an award that is basically fair and objective.”
Checks by this newspaper with the Florida and Georgia Departments of Transportation Procurements and Contracts divisions failed to unearth any work that he had done in those two States in the United States of America.
Executive Director of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) Winston Brassington, during a press briefing when the brouhaha surrounding Motilall escalated, had said that the contractor who is the head of Synergy Holdings Inc. had built roads in those two states. “Never heard of it…but I will check,” was the common response that this newspaper was met with during the attempt to verify whether Motilall, has undertaken any road projects in those States.
Checks were made at the Georgia Dept. of Transportation, Contractors division at contact number (404) 631-1990, and this newspaper was also directed to the state’s website (www.dot.ga.gov) which had a list of all prequalified contractors. Motilall of Synergy Holdings Inc. was not included.
The official that this newspaper spoke with first said that the name was not familiar, but undertook to search the database.
After several searches using different source data, all related to either Motilall or Synergy Holding Inc., the official stated that neither name was among the list of prequalified persons, further, there was no record that any road projects were undertaken by the company.
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