PPP distances self from GECOM $100M radio Scandal

Sep 22, 2016 News

General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party Civic, Clement Rohee, has set about distancing his

PPP/C General Secretary, Clement Rohee

party’s name from the controversial purchase of communication radios for the Guyana Elections Commission. He made this known during his party’s weekly press conference at Freedom House.
He said that the elections body was responsible for making all decisions on the matter inclusive of identifying where the equipment ought to be bought, and that the Government did not play any role in the procurement of the radios.
Rohee said, “The elections commission is an independent body; it has its own resources. It does its own procurement; that is how I understand it.”
According to him, GECOM would have been cognizant of the type of radios it wanted to purchase as it relates to the specifications for the equipment and the number needed.
Recently Chief Whip of the party, Gail Teixiera, stated that the issue would not have come to the Cabinet level during her tenure in office, since the figures were kept under the margin or threshold for Cabinet.
However, it was later revealed that the PPP/C cabinet did give its no-objection to the award of the contract during April last year. This left a few days for the supplier to order and import the items.
The radios were bought to be used during the May 2015 National and Regional Elections. Persons weighing in on the issue have said that the deal seems to have been designed to have the old radios dumped.
One Government official said that the installation of the radios would have been impossible given the timeline of the purchase, also when and where they were to be used; since to work in the hinterland regions, a base station, cables, pipes, power supply and technicians to install them would be needed before deployment.

Mobile Authority Boss, Michael Brasse

The matter of the radios has gained the attention of the Audit Office which is currently engaged in an investigation. The $100M contract was awarded to Mobile Authority, a company owned by Water Street businessman Michael Brasse.
Mr. Brasse also owns two other companies which have done business with GECOM, M-Tech Business Solutions and Mibra Trading. These separate entities were awarded around $290M in contracts for last year. Based on the contracts which Brasse’s companies received and the manner of procurement practiced, he seems to have been a favoured contractor for GECOM.
He supplied toners, stationery, office equipment, electrical items, Duracell batteries and furniture. Using the three companies to do business with GECOM raised suspicions of sole sourcing coupled with contract splitting.
This is so, since records have suggested that many payments were intentionally kept below a certain amount to avoid attracting attention from oversight bodies like the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB).
Chairman of GECOM, Dr. Steve Surujbally, had said that although the Commission would agree to what purchases needed to be made, the actual transactions are ultimately left to the GECOM Secretariat and the Ministry of Finance.

The radios that were supplied last year for the Elections.

Manufacturer of the radios, Barrett Communications, had written this newspaper expressing its surprise that images of its radios had appeared in the newspaper under such circumstances.
According to the company, it had never delivered radios to GECOM for the 2015 elections. It was explained that some of the radios in the photograph were from a 2006 purchase. Additionally the company said that production of the radios displayed had ceased in 2009.
GECOM apparently sourced 30 of the ICOM 718 model and 20 of an older Barrett radio. Since these radios are out of production, questions on the validity of the warranty offered by Brasse through Mobile Authority were raised.
Further, Barrett indicated that its local subsidiary Advanced Office Systems had tendered for the same contract but was denied, while a non-compliant company, Mobile Authority, was chosen.

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