Foreign Financial Institutions must evaluate projects they fund

Sep 11, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
There was once a time in Guyana during the PNC era and the early 1990’s of the PPP government, when corruption was so rampant in public procurement that no international body providing funding to Guyana used the government’s evaluation as a reference to award projects. Institutions such as the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, Canadian international Development Agency and the Department for International Development always procure services using their own advertisements and evaluation in the award of projects in which they are the funding party.
This was so because the governments and their workers were highly corrupt, seeking to simply give contracts to their friends and cronies while getting big kickbacks. It was the precise reason why our country was behind those of Haiti in the 1980’s and early 1990s as the poorest country in the world. I was happy to hear that international organizations up to recently have so much confidence in our tender board and our procurement processes that they now only issue a no objections to our national evaluations once the process was deemed fair and transparent to them. I believe this was the practice that came aboard under the PPP Government and while I am no big fan of the PPP, kudos should be given to them for ensuring that the international community has confidence in our evaluations emanating from the tender board.
Today, it seems like Guyana under the coalition government is intent to take the respect and dignity our country possess within the international community by committing the same sins as they did when they were in government during the dictatorship period. Every day it is one procurement scandal after another. We can name them; 1) Drugs bond cabinet fiasco, 2) and we are hearing of another sole source of 400Million dollars for pharmaceutical drugs in which several ministers are involved in coming to light. 3) sole sourcing of contractors aligned to the PNC and AFC to do construction works at government buildings, 4) source sourcing of for the 400M fertilizer contract, 5) the award to BK international of millions of US dollars after a simple letter, we can tell how much the coalition members received on that deal. 6) the award of contracts to Cummings electrical for supply of Generator after he was the 5th highest bidder and a crass explanation given that lowest bidder is not always the right bidder given by Mr. Williams from the Hinterland Electrification Programme.
This same Cummings have had other projects gifted to him by the government even though he is not the lowest bidder a case in point is the street lighting on the Ogle Airstrip Road. However with Mr. Williams’ explanation we do not need competitive bidding since 5 other bidders who bid low for a supply of a simple generator were all under-qualified.
The list does not stop there; we have the Mayor and city Council who everyday are giving contracts to the friends and family. Again no tendering and the Mayor recently said no audit. We can only imagine how pervasive corruption is in City Hall. The infamous parking meter corruption scandal is still going on. City Hall is busy running hard working venders off spots they have been occupying for decades to earn a living while setting up chicken and fish huts on these very spots that are operated by family members. The list is still long however, I believe the point is made. As a concerned Guyanese, I want to urge the International Organizations and the
The diplomatic community needs to reevaluate the evaluation reports, and the recommendations emanating out of the tender board and government offices. Do not fall prey to the corrupt practices of some individuals. When these stories hit the ceiling it is the hard working staff of these organizations that will feel the most sanctions since the policies governing their work on anti-corruption are far more stricter than those of governments. Do not let them bully you to make awards to their friends who are not qualified for the work and it is time that you reintroduce the mechanisms where you have independent international evaluators for the projects which you are funding in Guyana. We cannot go back to the days of corruption in public procurement; we have to move on.
Nigel Samaroo

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Foreign Financial Institutions must evaluate projects they fund

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