Evaluators under scrutiny for skullduggery; electronic tender submissions mulled

Sep 30, 2020 News

…Balgobin is temporary head of new NPTAB board

The National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB), under the Ministry of Finance (MoF), has come under new management.

Minister of Public Works, Bishop Juan Edghill poses with the new Board of NPTAB. From left is Omar Narine; Mark Conway; Gloria Beharry; Tarachand Balgobin; Desmond Mohamed; Steve Ninvalle and Bernard Lord

Chairman (ag), Tarachand Balgobin

This follows after Minister of Public Works (MoPW), with responsibility for Finance, Juan Edghill, appointed a new board.
Director of Project Cycle Management under the MoF, Tarachand Balgobin, has been appointed temporary Chairman of the Board.
Balgobin will be assuming NPTAB’s chairmanship from Berkley Wickham.
Meanwhile, the other newer board members include Bernard Lord, Desmond Mohamed, Omar Narine, Steve Ninvalle, Mark Conway and Gloria Beharry.
Minister Edghill congratulated the team, who he was keen to note, has years of experience. Notwithstanding their expertise in the field, Edghill laid out his expectations for the new board.
“Your job, primarily in the first instance, would be to uphold the high principles of ensuring transparency, accountability, competitive bidding, good governance, value for money and ensuring that you create an architecture that is free from corruption.”
Further, Edghill indicated to the team that he anticipates the timely awarding of contracts to boost the implementation of projects’ percentage. On that note, the Minister of Public Works tasked the new board to review the evaluators attached to NPTAB, with the view of ensuring that the work is done promptly. He highlighted that time delays may be occurring at the evaluating level and must not be allowed to continue.
Furthermore, Edghill pointed out that these evaluators must be reminded that they work for the Government of Guyana and not for contractors; hence a full review of staff will be conducted to stamp out “skullduggery”.Meanwhile, the newly installed NPTAB is positioning itself to facilitate electronic submissions of bids as Guyana prepares to undertake major transformative projects.
Chairman Balgobin said this option should encourage wider participation in the process.
“Public procurement is not to eliminate people. It is to encourage people to participate in the procurement process, to create competition and therefore create opportunities for value for money,” he said yesterday.
Balgobin said once the proposal is green-lighted it would allow bids to be submitted utilising PDF format or by flash drive.
“I have already spoken with our IT department to create a platform within our architecture where these documents cannot be compromised,” he said.
On receipt of the electronic submissions, NPTAB will cross-reference those with the official hardcopy submissions. Additionally, the evaluators will be provided with the electronic submissions, which they will only be able to access pending the completion of their work.
“There is no need to send another document to them, which is what we are doing now… The evaluation that they do will be resubmitted to us in an electronic form,” the Chairman explained.

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