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Auditor General still awaits Ocean View $1B hospital contract
Three weeks later…
Almost three weeks after requesting from the Ministry of Public Health a copy of the $1B Ocean View COVID-19 Hospital contract, the Auditor –General (AG) is yet to receive word from officials as the audit into the incumbent government’s novel coronavirus expenditure gets underway.
Auditor General Deodat Sharma
Ocean View COVID-19 Hospital
AG Deodat Sharma in an invited comment relayed to Kaieteur News that the engineers from his office wrote the Health Ministry to get answers to several questions surrounding the COVID-19 Hospital, but up to press time, they were awaiting answers.
“We are,” Sharma stated, “gathering information. We had written to the Permanent Secretary to give us information in terms of the expenditure and how the contracts were awarded and we are waiting a response on that.”
According to the AG, they had met with the PS and were promised that they would be in receipt of the information “shortly.”
“That’s what they said,” Sharma added.
Back in May, the AG had announced that an audit would be conducted to probe government’s expenses on the fight against COVID-19, with special attention being paid to the flagship infrastructural project.
Finance Minister, Winston Jordan had said that more than $1B will be spent on rehabilitating the property to make it a state of the art COVID-19 hospital. Additionally, an order was signed by Minister of Public Health, Volda Lawrence for compulsory acquisition of the property. Works are near completion at the hospital, but one question remains unanswered – where is the government sourcing the funds?
Kaieteur News had previously reported that almost 65% of the large sum was paid to contractors for works said to be completed at the site. This publication is in receipt of the Memorandum to the Finance Minister, Winston Jordan, from the Permanent Secretary of the Public Health Ministry, Collette Adams in correspondence to the Chairman of the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB), Berkley Wickham seeking approval to ‘single source’ bidders for the conversion of the old Ocean View International Hotel into a state-of-the-art Hospital for the incubation, isolation and quarantine of persons infected with the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) along with the documents from the Finance Ministry giving approval.
As spelt out in the Procurement Act of 2003 Chapter 73:05, Section 11(1), details of the Contract Award should have been forwarded to the NPTAB immediately so as to facilitate publishing on its website www.npta.gov.gy within five days of the signing. However, a quick search of the NPTAB website, under ‘Tender Awards’, turned up no results for this contract.
Concerns have also been raised about the long term justification for the use of the hotel and the arrangements that government has entered with the owners. In recent years, spring tides have been causing overtopping causing flooding to areas nearby. Due to the hotel’s close proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, back in 2013, the facility took a hit after high tides resulted in significant damage amounting to millions.
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