Why is this multi-billion GPL project taking so long to be awarded?

Jul 17, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
Kindly permit me to add to the growing discussion in your column pertaining to the debate concerning the GOG/IDB/EU funded GPL Project that is yet to be awarded.
As a previous writer contended, I also believe that it is very strange that an evaluation took over five months for this project with yet no award being made.
After reading the letter you published from Mr. Persaud stating that three Chinese companies are in the hunt for the project, it leaves me to wonder whether there is anything happening behind the scenes.
Mr. Editor, we have seen how foreign investors, especially the Chinese have bought their way into the Executive branch of our governments- both present and past. We just have to remember the problems with GTT shares, Marriott and Baishanlin of the PPP and the Harmon affair of the APNU/AFC to know how deep-rooted a problem we have.
It leaves me to wonder the extent of how much even our public procurement process has been infiltrated. How would Mr. Persaud and others become convinced that three Chinese companies have been shortlisted?
It would at the very least suggest that there is insiders’ knowledge at play. It would not come as a surprise that one of the Chinese companies would have indicated that they are tipped for the project which they have boldly written to the press to proclaim. I believe that this is the same company that your newspaper exposed for the faulty work undertaken for the GPL sub-stations project.
I have also seen the Head of the Hinterland Electrification Programme, Horace James, proclaiming that lowest price is not a criterion for winning a project.
This was the justification used to award Cummings Electrical several tenders for which he was not the lowest bidder.
What we are not seeing is a response from GPL or the Ministry of Public Infrastructure under which these projects fall about the status of this multi-billion dollar project.
Mr. Editor, we would like to see who the bidders are for this project, what were their prices, and what was the engineer’s estimate.
This project is funded by the EU and the IDB, both of which are supposed to have high standards for transparency and accountability at least at the level of their headquarters in Europe and the United States.
We would want to suppose that the country managers are paying keen attention to the concerns raised. The Guyanese public would also like to know why this project is taking so long to be evaluated. We would want to know that all stops are pulled out that will ensure that all is above board.
D. Martin

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