Almost $500M worth of computers procured for OLPT project were damaged

Almost $500M worth of computers procured for OLPT project were damaged – PAC hears

Oct 12, 2021 News

Kaieteur News – Almost $500M worth of the laptops procured for teachers under the One Laptop Per Teacher (OLPT) Project, which was implemented under the David Granger-led A Partnership For National Unity +Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) administration, were found to be damaged or defunct.

Flashback: Former President David Granger as he donates one of the laptops to a teacher in 2015.

The damaged computers were part of 9,609 laptops which were purchased by the E-Government Unit established under the People’s Progressive Party /Civic (PPP/C) Government in 2015.
The PPP/C had paid $1.6 billion for the Chinese branded Haier computers in 2015 for their One Laptop Per Family project but demitted office shortly after.
The computer programme was rebranded by the Granger administration as the One Laptop Per Teacher project and distributed them to teachers across the country when the APNU +AFC administration took office, a year later. It was however discovered that hundreds of the computer were damaged and not functioning.
The issue came up for discussion before the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday where it was noted that no steps were taken by the government to be compensated for $495M worth of damaged computers bought from the Chinese company.
APNU +AFC Member of Parliament (MP) and PAC member, Ganesh Mahipaul, lamented on the fact that some five years have passed since a police investigation was launched into the issue.
“… It is honestly quite disappointing that after all these years, there seems to be no aggression in seeking compensation from the vendor of these damaged laptops. Five years have gone and this is going down as a loss,” Mahipaul stated.
Mahipaul alluded to the fact that the damaged laptops and the police investigation are mentioned in consecutive reports of the Auditor General with no word of a solution.
“We have been waiting on the police report. I personally asked about it a number of times, up to last year, the Auditor General Report cited it and it has been appearing year after year,” he said.
Mahipaul added, “There is need for a holistic investigation. This is a very important where millions of dollars were spent. We should await that report before we draw conclusions.”
PPP/C MP, Dharamkumar Seeraj, enquired whether the investigation was conducted to determine whether the damage to the computers was as a result of manufacturer defect or because of the conditions under which they were stored.
In response, General Manager of the National Data Management Authority (NDMA), Francis Simmons, noted that the laptops were inferior. Simmons explained that although the laptops had remained in storage for some time before being distributed, the general poor quality of the laptops were to be blamed for the damage.
Additionally, it was pointed out to the PAC that 103 laptops stored at the E-Government Unit were stolen in 2011.
Former Permanent Secretary of the then Ministry of Public Telecommunications, Derrick Cummings, in response to queries about this said that he could not provide any update on the police investigation into the issue of the stolen laptops. The stolen computers related to the One Laptop Per Family project which was initiated some 10 years ago. The cost of the 103 computers is estimated at some $17 million.
Cummings revealed that, “The PS at the Office of the President was more intimately involved in the matter.”
Back in 2011, an audit investigation revealed that the National Frequency Management Unit (NFMU) was unable to account for the missing laptops. It was further deduced that financing of that project was opaque and funded out of moneys received by the NFMU, which was itself retaining funds from the Consolidated Fund.
“The project did not maintain any proper system of accounting and the only accounting done was by way of instructions to the NFMU to approve invoices for payment. There was no accounting for transactions executed on behalf of the project, nor was there any reconciliation of the records of the OLPF and the NFMU,” the report added.
Substantive testing and expenditure analysis also confirmed that $1,263,454,790 was paid by the NFMU for the administrative, employment, training and distribution expenses incurred by OLPF during the period May 9, 2011 to May 31, 2015.
Given this situation, the auditors had recommended that the matter be referred to the police for a full investigation.

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