More irregularities unearthed in procurement of exercise, textbooks- State auditors begin investigations

May 14, 2019 News

State auditors have started their investigations into the controversial ordering of text and exercise books for public schools.

The Book Distribution Unit

The contracts involved over a $1B in the last four years, but there have been questions into the procurement and other issues related to the hundreds of thousands of exercise books and text books.
The issue is threatening to drag in the Coalition Government which has been accusing the now Opposition (the People’s Progressive Party/Civic) of the same thing— rackets in the procurement of books.
Until now, there has been large shroud of secrecy over the ordering of books.
The Government runs scores of public schools across the country. Under an ongoing programme, stretching for decades now, the books are distributed to students.
In the case of text books, the books are supposed to be returned at the end of the year from students who are moving to higher classes. Quite a few of the text books are not from Guyana and cannot be printed here because of copyright reasons.
Recently, local printers complained bitterly that since 2017, the government abruptly halted contracts on books being printed by locals.
With hundreds of millions of dollars sunk into printing presses and other equipment, many of the printers looked on in disbelief as orders were placed in Trinidad to suppliers…work they say that should be awarded to them, as there is the capacity to handle the orders here.
Many of the local printers were until now afraid to speak out because of repercussions.
The Ministry of Education has distanced itself out from the orders, saying it only contracted the state-owned Guyana National Printers Limited (GNPL), and was not involved in any way with the Trinidad company.
GNPL, after days of pressure, finally, through its Chief Executive Officer, Trevor Bassoo, issued a statement a few days ago, insisting that local producers did not have capacity and it only turned to a Trinidad supplier, Eniath’s Printing Company Limited, to meet orders from the Ministry of Education. However, local printers roundly rejected that they don’t have capacity.
A number of them insisted that they were not aware of the book orders. Rather, GNPL never advertised for bids. It was found that on one occasion, a quantity of chequered lines exercise books ordered were 56 pages, instead of the normal 80 pages.
This indicated that Guyana lost tens of millions of dollars in what is emerging to be systematic fraud.
Local printers, who are preparing to ask for a meeting with President David Granger, have insisted that the Government has turned its back on the private sector, with no care for their investments and no care for their workers’ jobs.
In addition to a reduced number of pages, local printers said that from their investigations, it appears that GNPL also would have been ordering short supplies.
“We have a number of documents and other evidence. We are hoping that President David Granger is paying attention. Something is wrong here and we need to get it fixed in a hurry,” a representative of a city printer said yesterday.
The printers said that they are willing to provide the evidence to state auditors. They are complaining also that it is unfair that GNPL is competing with them in a market where taxpayers appear not to be getting value for money.
“If you don’t have open bidding and the prices paid are all secret, then it points to something fishy,” the official said.
GNPL has been producing exercise books, including chequered and single lines, and certain text books over the years for Government. However, aging equipment left GNPL struggling.
In 2016, during a visit, President Granger promised to inject cash into the La Penitence-based operations. It received $100M, but a second-hand press has failed to deliver.
The Ministry of Education also appears not to care too much to how much it was paying for books, with reports that the price to GNPL was more than 70 percent of what other local printers could have gotten it done for.
This year, the Ministry of Education has earmarked almost $600M for the printing of exercise and text books.

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