Transparency group calls for greater oversight with govt. contracts

Mar 17, 2017 News

Transparency Institute Guyana Incorporated (TIGI) is calling for more stringent measures to address issues of collusion in the awarding of government contracts. At a roundtable discussion in the Ministry of Education Boardroom at Beterverwagting yesterday, Regional Democratic Council representatives, civil society and private sector members were unanimous in their call for more to be done to tackle this issue.
The aim of the discussion was to empower citizens to have a greater say in the way contracts are awarded.
TIGI said that it is important that persons are empowered to track transparency, accountability at the local government level and the group was hopeful that this level of scrutiny will snowball into the central government.
During the discussions, it was suggested that independent evaluators be sought, and that the local government structures should not be reliant on council staff to evaluate projects. Recently it has been found that some evaluators are leaking information to contractors who will then tinker with their bid with the aim of securing the contract.
This they believe cannot be good for accountability and good quality work since nepotism will rule the roost. TIGI is advocating that independent evaluators be sought to ensure that those that are listed as qualifying for a contract are indeed worthy to execute it.
The group is also calling for monitors to volunteer in overseeing contracts in the region. The reason advanced for this move is that if persons within the community are listed as monitors, there will be a sense of ownership, and persons will be less likely to look away when standards are not what they should be.
Transparency Institute Guyana Incorporated is the local body that monitors and assesses the level of compliance by government and other bodies with regards to accountability and transparency.

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