Dem. Bridge $148M contract award… Opposition moves to SOCU over ‘irregularities’

Aug 16, 2018 News

Opposition Chief Whip, Gail Teixeira

Opposition members are to visit the office of the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) at Camp Road today.
According to Opposition Chief Whip, Gail Teixeira, the aim of the visit is to present the findings of the Public Procurement Commission (PPC)’s report on a consultancy contract for the new Demerara River Bridge.
The PPC report highlighted procurement breaches in the award of contract to LievenseCSO Engineering Contracting BV, a Dutch company.
The move to SOCU follows a statement released by the Ministry of Public Infrastructure on Monday which sought to justify the process used to award the contract.
Teixeira told Kaieteur News yesterday that the statement by the Ministry totally ignored the PPC report and its findings.
“We will be submitting the PPC report to SOCU,” Teixeira assured.
The Chief Whip had written to the PPC requesting the investigation into the December 2016 contract award. The PPC noted that the reference tender was for $148M.
The PPC in its investigation found that the Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson’s request to Cabinet for approval of the contract was not forwarded through the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB).
Based on the PPC report, the submission by Patterson, directly to Cabinet, was in breach of the Procurement Act.
The PPC found that the procurement procedure used to select the company did not meet the requirement of any of the methods described in the Procurement Act.
Additionally, the PPC probe highlighted that the General Manager of the DHBC, Rawlston Adams signed the agreement without the approval of the DHBC Board.
LievenseCSO was one of 23 companies that responded to a November 2015 advertisement from the Ministry for the feasibility study for the new Demerara River Bridge.
Twelve companies were shortlisted and were requested to submit detailed proposals. Only two companies submitted detailed proposals as requested.
The Ministry noted that having reviewed the two proposals, an evaluation Committee deemed one of the two detailed submissions as being inconsistent with what was required, and the other, far in excess of budget, even after negotiations with the bidder.
Consequently, the Ministry noted, with the agreement of the NPTAB, it annulled the tender process.
According to the Ministry, this then left the Government “in a most peculiar situation of having faithfully and dutifully executed the outlined procurement process and having yielded zero result for a project which is of national importance”.
The Ministry admitted that an unsolicited proposal was received from LievenseCSO Infrastructure & Environment with Econovision and Ace Consultancy.
The Ministry stated that the proposal satisfied the government’s requirements. Further, it was noted that given the relevant time constraints, it was felt that it was in Guyana’s interest to take advantage of the proposal.

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