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US$4.2m prepaid meter contract to be retendered – Min. Patterson
Government has completed the preparation of a new tender package for the Guyana Power and Light
Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson
(GPL) US$4.2M prepaid meter supply contract, with the expectation that it will be tendered once more by the end of February or early March.
This is according to Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson. He noted that subject to the Board of Directors’ ratification, the contract will be retendered.
According to Minister Patterson, preparations for putting the contract back out to tender would have been completed by now.
“It will go out back to tender shortly,” Patterson said. “If it’s not immediately after the Board ratifies it, I would hope within the next four to six weeks.” He also provided assurance that the project will be subject to the established safeguards.
“There are always safeguards. It’s not a question of individuals. The problem with this is (and) why I annulled it is that when I looked at it; it didn’t have the (complete) tender documents and too many loopholes. Based on that, I annulled it.”
Government had aborted the multi-million-dollar tender for thousands of prepaid meters and had ordered it to be retendered following damning complaints against Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GPL, Colin Welch.
This occurred last year on the instructions of subject Minister Patterson, even before a number of alarming text messages came to light reportedly from Colin Welch, then acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the state-owned power company. Welch denied the e-mails claiming that he was in no position at the time the mail were reportedly sent, to send them.
Minister Patterson has also ordered a full report on the text messages purportedly sent by Welch to a British supplier and Chinese manufacturer. Welch, according to those texts, allegedly broke a number of procurement regulations when he allegedly engaged the two companies, promising to do a number of things to ensure they are awarded the delayed meter contract that is worth over US$4.2M ($840M).
The contract had been awarded to Tesco PLC in April, but it ran into early trouble when one of the unsuccessful bidders complained that the assessment of the bids was flawed and that Tesco’s manufacturer of the meters, Shenzhen Clou Electronics Company Limited, was not making those types of meters that were being requested by GPL.
The purported text messages by Welch to the two foreign companies were leaked to Minister Patterson, GPL Directors, Managers and Government officials.
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