SAME STROKES, DIFFERENT FOLKS

Aug 10, 2016 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Young people will become apathetic and indifferent towards politics, again. The young people, during the latter days of the PNC, were turned off from politics because of the levels of political violence and intimidation. Young people saw politics as dirty and dangerous. They stayed clear of politics.
Things began to change following the democratic elections of 1992. But not long after, the young people became exhausted by the bipolar politics of Guyana. They fell in line and became part of Guyana’s polarized landscape.
The formation of the Alliance for Change altered things. It offered the young people an alternative, a third force. The third force morphed in 2015 with the old politics, but the PPP was so tainted with the stigma of corruption that young people rallied behind the APNU+AFC coalition.
The young people expected much from the new APNU+AFC government. They, instead, have been showered with disappointments over the last fifteen months. With each passing day, ’change’ has seemed like ‘exchange’. And the situation is getting worse.
The young people are looking closely at the new government. Instead of change, they are seeing exchange. The APNU+AFC coalition is, with each passing day, beginning to look, smell and sound like the PPPC government which it replaced.
Yesterday’s edition of this newspaper dropped a bombshell. It reported that the Ministry of Health had signed an agreement with a private company for rental of bond space for storage of pharmaceuticals. Photographs published by this newspaper showed works being undertaken in the bond.
Yet, we are told that the body was certified as fit for the storage. How can a bond be certified as fit, if it is not completed?
The PPPC while it was constructing a bond at Diamond was criticized for having rented storage space from the New GPC. As it turned out, it was not the government which was doing the rental, but a company which was involved in establishing the new bond at Diamond.
If the Diamond Bond is not completed or is it not up to standard, then the government had to know this fact fifteen months ago. It therefore had no need to go to sole sourcing for storage.
The Procurement Act is very clear on the circumstances under which sole sourcing can be employed. Sole sourcing is referred to in the legislation as single sourcing. There are five circumstances under which single sourcing may be employed. The first one is if the service being sought can only be provided by one supplier; the second one is if the service is specialized and can only be had from one source; the third one is preceded by a catastrophic event which precludes other methods of procurement such as open tendering; the fourth one is in cases in which the procuring entity is obligated to procure supplies and services from a particular entity; the final is in the instance of national security.
The young people would have recalled that the parties to the coalition were highly critical of the PPPC when it waived Tender Board regulations to allow for single sourcing. The young people would have recalled also that the coalition parties were opposed to what they deemed tender–rigging in the prequalification requirements for the procurement of drugs which effectively handed the bulk of the drug purchases in the country to one firm.
The coalition parties promised openness and transparency. The young people believed them.
Where is the transparency when 12.5 million dollars per month is handed to a company for the storage of pharmaceuticals drugs within an open tendering process? And to rub insult to injury, the bond has been said to have been certified even while workmen are still undertaking works on what seems to be the physical structure as well as the air-conditioning.
If the parties to the coalition hope to hold the interest of the young people of Guyana they must now establish a commission of inquiry into this single sourcing with the aim of answering a number of questions.
Was there justification for single sourcing? How many years is this contract for? How was the sum paid as rental for the private bond arrived at? Did this matter not raise red flags within the Ministry of Finance? Would it not have been cheaper for the government to spend the 150 million dollars annually on fixing the Diamond Bond?

1 thoughts on “SAME STROKES, DIFFERENT FOLKS”

Surujpaul Rampersaud August 11, 2016 at 11:22 am

I disagree with you that young people will again sit on the side lines. This time they will become more vociferous in their demands not to put the failed old horses on the track again. We are also seeing the same old failed policies being repackaged. The world is now one big global village and social media is enabling the young people to speak out. In the next election the party that can listen to and involve the young will come out victorious. Young people played a great part in the removal of the PPP but the PNC AFP is bent on recycling the old horses. We see this left right and center.