GPL’s $63M truck can be picked up for less than $25M

Jun 20, 2020 News

News that the Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) paid $587M for eight bucket trucks, with the bulk of the money transferred this week to the supplier, has raised deep concerns.
These concerns were not only over price but also of the timing of the payment with declarations for the March 2nd elections in the air. There have been warnings about last minute spending.
As has highlighted in our report yesterday, the price paid by GPL is extraordinarily high.
According to quotes from suppliers, one of the new trucks could be acquired for less than $25M.
GPL paid $253,337,460 for four IVECO trucks. These are the “Versa SST 40 Bucket Truck (45 feet)”. This meant each cost $63,334,365.
GPL would therefore, for these four trucks, paid more than $30M each or $130M.
Kaieteur News, as of yesterday, did not receive the quotes for the bigger, longer-reach IVECO/VST 5500 Utility Truck (65 feet).
The price difference, though a few millions more, would definitely not attract the $83M that GPL said it paid, the newspaper was told.
According to GPL’s payment documents, seen by this paper, these larger bucket trucks cost $83,441,580 each – the four totalled $333,766,320.
The contract was awarded by GPL in January to Massy Motors (Guy) Limited.
According to the order, GPL paid Massy Motors 30 percent in advance with 60 percent of the monies after the trucks would have arrived. The remaining 10 percent is due after 30 days of receipt of the trucks.
The trucks are said to be all part of the fleet maintenance for GPL and to be used by the Generation Department.
It is unclear what procurement procedures were used for the procurement of the trucks.
An official of GPL said that a statement would be issued shortly on the almost $600M purchase.
He said that from his knowledge, the acquisition of the bucket trucks was in the works for about two years now and would have been advertised on GPL’s website.
He was unable to say if it was advertised in the local media; he did, however, say that the vehicles were new ones.
In recent weeks, there has been growing evidence of a number of questionable transactions by various government departments.

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