PPP says was unaware about contract-splitting at GECOM

Sep 10, 2016 News

“The issues would not have come to Cabinet, because they (Guyana Elections Commission) kept the figures under the margin or threshold for Cabinet.”
Those were the words of People’s Progressive Party Civic Chief Whip Gail Teixeira when asked yesterday to comment on the recent findings from the state audit on the purchase of communication radios by GECOM.
According to the Parliamentarian, during a press conference at Freedom House, her Party finds the revelations disturbing and attributed the party’s ignorance on the matter while it was in office, to the fact that the contract sums were of an amount that didn’t warrant the attention of the PPP/C cabinet.
She said that the disclosure is worrying because it appears as though one contractor has been favoured. She said that at the moment, her party is awaiting the Auditor General’s report which will be taken to the Public Accounts Committee to be further analysed.
Teixeira went onto say that outside of the financial discrepancies, it is even more disturbing since it appears as though the radios were purchased to be used on Election Day but were not used. She said that this raises concerns, since not having the radios or not having all of them would have affected the communication capacity of polling agents.
“The radios have always been a critical component of elections, not just for the interior but also for the coastal areas. Our concerns are therefore two-fold – one to the financial scrutiny and why were these not put into operation on Election Day, and if this may have helped to control some of the tensions on Election Day.”
Based on records of spending at the elections unit, there was one businessman at the centre of the investigation in the procuring and purchasing of radios. It was reported that the individual Michael Brasse, received almost $290M in contracts for supplying items to GECOM.
The relationship between Brasse and GECOM has been shrouded with controversy, given the fact that Brasse had at least three companies doing business with the Commission.
Moreover, the practice of contract-splitting seemed to have been employed so as to evade the watchful eyes of auditors and authorities. The three companies linked to the businessman are Brasse – Mobile Authority, M-Tech Business Solutions and Mibra Trading.
Based on transactions which were scrutinized, these companies had eased up doing business with GECOM after the elections results came out and announced that the A Partnership for National Unity – Alliance For Change coalition had won.
GECOM has since refused to comment on the radio purchases from Mobile Authority, saying that there is an ongoing probe by the Audit Office of Guyana.
Meanwhile, according to records seen by Kaieteur News, Brasse appeared to be a preferred supplier for stationery for GECOM. He delivered items such as toners, office furniture and equipment, photo paper and scanners, printing accessories, and even Duracell batteries.
Shortly before the elections, on April 5th, he was paid $99,560,000. This was for HF radios. For this, a business called Mobile Authority was used.
The financial records would also tell a story of some strange payments made to Brasse’s companies.
For example, on February 3rd, 2015, there were six payments totaling over $43.2M – four of them were for toners while two payments were for the supply of stationery.
Why there was not one order for toners is unclear. Strangely enough, two of the payments to M-Tech Business Solutions were similar – that is, two amounts for $2,492,590 – representing payments for stationery.
On February 13th, M-Tech received a payment of almost $15M for office furniture.
The business entity received three major payments between February 9th and February 25th totaling – $43.6M for photo paper, stationery and office furniture.
It was clear that compared to other entities, Brasse and his businesses were highly favoured and received the lion’s share.
In May, Brasse’s businesses were paid on six occasions, for contracts totalling $144M. These were for the HF radios, four contracts for the supply of toners and one for Duracell batteries. GECOM’s Chairman, Dr. Steve Surujbally, when contacted, explained that the Commission is not involved in the day-to-day operations of the secretariat as there are staffers designated for that purpose.

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PPP says was unaware about contract-splitting at GECOM

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