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Mr. Horace Williams needs to be very specific
Dear Editor,
In recent weeks, the newspapers have been taking note of the developments in the electricity sector. Of especial note is the one involving tenders and contracts of the Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL).Mr. Editor, for years, there have been questions regarding contracts in this sector with little updates coming from GPL. It involved billions of dollars. Our transmission lines and sub-station project is but one. There are a number of them being evaluated now and Guyana is paying attention.
On Saturday, there was an interesting letter in your newspaper from Mr. Horace Williams, Head of the Hinterland Electrification Company Inc. (HECI). It was in response to a Kaieteur News article questioning the award of a tender of $7.5M to Cummings Electrical. Cummings won the contract from 16 bidders. The company was number 10 when it came to price…in other words nine other persons beat out Cummings.
The goodly Mr. Williams contended that the lowest price is not the only reason for awarding a contract. But there remain questions and the letter was abrupt without addressing the real issue.
A good academic letter but nowhere is there an examination of the specifics related to the tender. One could probably use this letter for any award being questioned. But where is the relevance?
Perhaps Mr. Williams can explain some specifics related to this tender:
1. Who evaluated the tender and what were the tender criteria
2. Did the tender criteria and evaluation compare consistently with prior evaluations for generators of this size and for the hinterland?
3. Compare the tenders against the criteria and show the critical evaluation; were points for the scoring specified in the tender or were these assumed by the evaluators (who appointed the evaluators and how objective were they)?
4. Did this evaluation obtain the approval of the Tender Board?
5. Did it obtain Cabinet’s approval?
Would Mr. Williams kindly answer the above questions rather than write an academic piece that can be used as a generalization for any tender. Where is the transparency and accountability specific to this tender? He would do well to provide the details and maybe it would Kaieteur News well to ask. There is a deeper story here.
How can a tender that is almost the highest against many companies that have tendered lower in this instance and won similar tenders, be explained, if not bias and a preference for certain tenderers? Please show the objectivity, lack of bias, and fair and objective application of the evaluation of the criteria stated in the tender. Why is the Procurement Commission not established as yet? Who is policing this evaluation? Mr. Williams, kindly be specific is your response?
S.B. Hodge
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