Former Minister granted $2.7M in unadvertised contracts

Jul 02, 2015 News

Show us what you did, we will pay –Harmon tells Ganga Persaud
The new Government is questioning how a Minister of the previous administration managed to secure two million-dollar contracts with evidence suggesting that they were never advertised in the first place.

Former Minister,
Ganga Persaud

Under procurement laws, there are procedures how state contracts are awarded.
Former Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Ganga Persaud, who suddenly resigned in January 2014, is now asking for pay.
His contract at what was formerly the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports was for $1.8M, while at the Ministry of Labour, the figure was $900,000.
Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, during his weekly press conference yesterday, believed that the contracts were some sort of payoff to Persaud.
Last week, the Minister said that the administration was in possession of a number of questionable contracts that went to former Government officials. He promised to divulge more information.
However, following a report by an online media house, Persaud issued a statement claiming that nothing was wrong and he had offered services and wanted the money that is outstanding to him.
Yesterday, Harmon made it clear that he had written the former Minister asking him about the contracts which were awarded under such “generous terms”.
Rather than answering, Persaud resorted to taking to the newspapers, Harmon said.
The Minister found it strange that Persaud was not required to submit any reports to the two Ministries for his work.
“…This is the quality of madness that took place under the PPP (People’s Progressive Party/Civic

Minister of State, Joseph Harmon

administration) where funds that belong to the state were easily given away like that… without anyone basically having to give you an account as how the funds were spent.”
The Minister of State said that there was no evidence that the contracts were advertised.
The actual work that Persaud claimed he did was also disputed by the Minister.
“In fact, I never knew that there were requirements for those kinds of services. The fact of the matter is that this seems to be some kind of payoff for Ganga Persaud.”
He asked for Persaud to “show what work” he did before any outstanding payments could be made.
In his statement last Friday, Persaud disclosed that he was contracted by the Ministry of Labour to provide advisory services as stated in a contract agreement he signed with the Ministry.
These included the provision of advisory service to the Cooperatives Division of the Ministry of Labour on handling the winding up process of defunct Cooperatives Societies and the provision of advisory service to the Cooperatives Division of the Ministry of Labour on the handling of management issues encountered by Cooperatives Societies in difficult circumstances, and its impact on the functioning of the Cooperatives Division.
It also included enumerating and proposing ways to address matters related to the public awareness of the implementation of the International Labour Organisation resolution to which Guyana has acceded.
His duties would also have been coordinating with other Ministries and agencies to gather information to fulfill the Ministry’s obligations to report to the International Labour Organization on ratified conventions.
Persaud claimed he fulfilled the requirements hence his requests for payments which were made to the Ministry.
“My contract ended on May 31, 2015 and I did not express any interest to extend/renew it.”
He said that he was not contracted to provide any report.
“I provided the services for which I was contracted and this can be verified by the Chief Cooperatives Officer. I had almost weekly face to face meetings with her and another senior staff in the Division. We collectively made several decisions which were implemented over the period.
“I am therefore unaware of any abuse, irregularity and/ or controversy surrounding my contract with the Ministry of Labour or any other Agency,” he said in his statement.