GPL says no money paid to contractor; purchase order says otherwise

Jun 23, 2020 News

$587M bucket trucks…

State- owned company, the Guyana Power & Light Incorporated (GPL), in response to an article published last week by Kaieteur News, says that it has not yet made any payments to Massy Motors, the contractor selected to procure eight bucket trucks at price tag of $587 million, despite a purchase order illustrating otherwise. In addition to this, GPL highlighted that the total does not only cover the cost of the vehicles.

Local purchase order by GPL

According to documents seen by this publication last week, GPL had paid $253,337,460 for four IVECO trucks. These are the ‘Versa SST 40 Bucket Truck (45 feet)’ model, or $63,334,365 per vehicle. However, according to quotes from suppliers when that article was published, one of the new trucks could be acquired for less than $25M. GPL would therefore, for these four trucks, paid more than $30M each or $130M.
Furthermore, more research would later reveal that these trucks, could be procured in the United States for as low as USD$40,000, or as high as USD$90,000—figures that carry a significantly less sum than what was stated on the document seen by Kaieteur News.
Kaieteur News has not yet received the quotes for the bigger, longer-reach IVECO/VST 5500 Utility Truck (65 feet) models, acquired at a total cost of $333,766,320 or $83,441,580 each. The price difference, though a few millions more, would definitely not attract the $83M that GPL said it paid, the newspaper was told.
It is in response to the paper’s reporting that the company, in a statement issued to the press yesterday, explained that the cost of the trucks constitutes approximately 35% of the overall cost of the equipment to be supplied. They stated that the balance is made up of the cost of the lifting equipment, ancillary equipment, retrofitting costs (installing the lifting equipment onto the trucks), and the freight and insurance costs to deliver the lifting equipment and trucks from USA and Europe, respectively, then retrofitting, certifying and commissioning in Guyana. In addition, they informed that costs are also included for operator training of GPL staff in Guyana on the new equipment and preventative maintenance for one year.
The release further stated that the supplier had advised GPL that as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, “both the manufacturer of the trucks in Europe and the manufacturer of the lifting equipment in the USA had encountered issues which affected their respective operations resulting in temporary delays in their supply chain processes. GPL has now been advised that the manufacturers have recommenced operations and completed units are being prepared for shipment.”
The procurement process
An open tender process was used, the release noted but the bid documents were first published on GPL’s website on April 30, 2019 and during the months of May and June 2019. They said that a total of 12 paid advertisements for the supply were made in the national newspapers including this publication, Stabroek News and the Guyana Chronicle. Additionally, GPL said also that they advertised the tender on the United Nations Business Development Website.
Notably when Kaieteur News checked through the GPL’s website, it found that there were no bids for those vehicles published on April 30, as stated by GPL. Instead, there was one Invitation for Bids, dated at February 2019, for one new bucket Truck, one new utility vehicle and one new rotating Digger Derrick.
Following completion of the evaluation process, GPL’s Tender Board approved the award to Massy Motors during the month of December 2019. The Purchase Order (PO) was then issued on January 31, 2020.
In the interest of clarity, this paper reached out to the Public Relations Officer (PRO) under GPL, Shevion Sears-Murray, who informed the publication that those inquiries would be answered today.