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Rethink the value of ‘only’ placing Govt. ads online

Aug 29, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,
The move by Government to move towards solely web-based advertising for goods and services is commendable and ill-conceived at the same time.
The architect(s) behind this scheme surely has to know that the National Procurement and Tender Administration (hereafter NPTA) already advertises for procurement services and goods. Additionally, NPTA’s website also lists awarded contracts, bidders and minutes of bid opening processes. This is clearly a case of duplication of efforts and services.
The proposed services of the new procurement website should fall within the mandate of the NPTA, which already has its own website and internal infrastructure to carry out such activities. Now that there are two websites for this, how do potential bidders know which one to visit for which contracts, which of the two offers legitimate and superior information and when to visit these websites for advertisements? Are the architects of this new website usurping the function of the NPTA?
Is the NPTA authorising the publication of public procurement ads on the new government site? If so then it must take down its own advertisements so as to not confuse and misinform the public. What about eligible international bidders, will the new government site list contracts that are open to international competition as well?
Secondly I am interested to see accuracy and effectiveness of maintenance and updating carried out with the new website. We all know that some procurement processes can be lengthy, even pre-procurement processes that require prior consultation between ministries, the National Procurement and Tender Administration (NPTA) and Cabinet can be drawn out. Surely the architect(s) behind this website would know that an inter-ministry mechanism must be put in place to ensure procurement ads are issued in accordance with local regulations, timely advertised and the names of awarded bidders are published.
In other words such a website has to be highly active and responsive to real time decisions else unfair competition will be promoted by not allowing potential bidders a reasonable and equal amount of preparation time.   Additionally, transparency will be shoved under the carpet if the names of successful bidders and results of bidding processes are not disclosed via this website. If this site is serious about promoting accountability and transparency, ensuring procurement notices meet a wide cross-section of Guyanese and other eligible bidders and sustaining this mechanism, it is simply not enough to issue advertisements and vacancies.
Finally, a large segment of the Guyanese populace read the newspapers first thing in the morning and many perhaps most contractors and suppliers sympathetic to the Government receive information through the mediums of newspapers and word of mouth. I’ve spoken to several persons and this is a preference, so I am not certain which parameters or indicators have been used to justify this move by the Government not to mention how it plans to measure and monitor the effectiveness of this new website. Remember the premise of this website as reported by the Government is to “promote accountability and transparency.” These two principles require more that wide publication to give them relevancy; they require appropriate mechanisms and processes. Since most read the papers and prefer this medium coupled with the fact that local procurement processes and mechanisms have not drastically changed in parallel then it is logical to see that there are perhaps unspoken motives behind this experiment.   It would be wise if a balance of electronic and newspaper mediums are used in Guyana’s context, a hybrid that can maximize values for resources.
Rawle Small

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