Minister suspected of being major financier

Jul 25, 2011 News

‘Barber Shop’ computer scandal grows…
The issue of the contract to Digital Technology has taken yet another interesting turn. The company is registered as Digital Technology Group of Companies with Krishendat Sukhu as its Chief Executive Officer.
Documents from the Deeds Registry stated that the company was registered on June 2, 2009.
Yesterday, information that Sukhu was the front man for three investors came to the fore. The three all came out of the University of Guyana, two of them graduating from the same class. They later became lecturers at the University and are said to have maintained a strong bond. One of them is now a Minister of Government.
Last week after queries arose about the contracts worth some $300 million for the supply of computers to the Ministry of Education, Minister of Education Shaik Baksh and Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh hastily called a press conference to denounce this newspaper.
Minister Baksh announced that Digital Technology was “not a fly by night company” since the Education Ministry was doing business with it since 2002. It did not matter to Minister Baksh that the company only came into existence some seven years later.
But even before Digital Technology became a registered company, instructions came from the Ministry of Finance that Ministries should no longer requisition computers, that all requisitions would be made by the Ministry of Finance.
Three years ago, Raymond Khan, General Manager of the Centre for Information Technology, spearheaded a project at the Ministry of Finance. Terrence Sukhu was the major supplier for the computer components for that project.
There was no known tender for that contract. Khan until then had spearheaded the University of Guyana Computer programme.
The Ministry of Legal Affairs was one of the entities that received such an order and subsequently received two computers. The Ministry later found that maintenance was an issue. It could not acquire components months after the receipt of the computer.
Digital Technology has been supplying all the computer requirements for the Education Ministry and for just about every Government Ministry. Information is that the involvement of one of the owners is in a senior Government position and is facilitating such contracts.
Meanwhile, approaches are to be made to Education Minister Baksh for details of all the contracts supplied to Digital Technology. On Thursday, he said that Digital Technology had received 38 contracts over the past nine years.
Not all were for the Education Ministry but Minister Baksh had close knowledge of all these 38 contracts awarded to Digital Technology. He was not even a Minister of Education in 2002.
And Digital Technology has not been known for its maintenance programme. The local university has been supplied with equipment by the company through the Ministry of Education.
Sources have told Kaieteur News that the Ministry of Education recently paid the company $10 million to replace two 25KVA UPS (uninterrupted power supply systems) that were damaged by the massive flood in 2005.
The original equipment were of the Powerware brand. The Ministry made a decision to replace the equipment with the same pair of Powerware-branded UPS.
However, Digital Technology delivered equipment different from the specifications it should have sent.
What the company supplied was two 20KVA APC UPS – a different brand and less than the required KVA.
The equipment was installed by a different company, which has an East Bank Demerara address and which was said to be an extension of Digital Technology.
The equipment was installed some time in October 2010, but did not last more than a month. The University complained to the Ministry of Education, Digital Technology and the firm that installed the equipment, but to no avail.
With months of delay, the University decided to hire another company and as a result Digital Technology has not been held to account for the faulty equipment.
In fact, this was not the first time that the University had concerns with the company.
A senior University official told Kaieteur News that the University in the past did buy equipment directly from the company, but it was found that the equipment would soon need repairs. And as a result, the University stopped buying from the company and now sources directly from Dell, through a relationship established with the University of the West Indies.

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Minister suspected of being major financier

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