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The Agriculture Ministry Permanent Secretary was never instructed to resign

Dec 04, 2023 Letters

Dear Editor,

Kaieteur News – The Ministry of Agriculture wishes to respond and denounce the outrageous claims made in a December 2, 2023 letter published in one of the daily newspapers titled ‘Serious trouble at the Agriculture Ministry, people being pressured into wrongdoing’.

The writer began his letter by saying that the Permanent Secretary was instructed to submit her resignation. This was a blatant lie. The Permanent Secretary has functioned as a public servant for many years and proceeded on pre-retirement leave last month. This is customary in Guyana’s Public Service system and isn’t an isolated case.

Secondly, to support his misinformation, the writer suggested that the reason the Permanent Secretary had resigned was that she “refused to violate contract management procedures.” Mr. Editor, having made known the fact that the Permanent Secretary was never instructed to resign would eliminate the need for anyone to believe that she was instructed to violate contract management procedures.

If we were to go a bit further, the Permanent Secretary does not sign contracts or manage contracts for agencies. After awards are made for projects and contracts drafted, General Managers and Chief Executive Officers are the ones who sign these documents with the contractor on behalf of the agencies. These projects are then managed and monitored by the engineering and monitoring officers attached to those agencies. Since the PPP/C Government took office, contract-signing activities have been held publicly in an effort to support public awareness. Follow-up meetings are also held with agency heads, and in some cases with the contractors, to assess the progress made with the execution of these contracted projects.

While the central ministry has oversight of these projects, semi-autonomous agencies of the Ministry of Agriculture implement all contracts under their various budgetary allocations. Each contract adheres to a standard procurement process and payments are effected only for measured works that are deemed satisfactorily completed and approved by the head of those agencies.  In these cases, advance payments are secured whereby contractors are required to provide advance payment bonds, and insurances and the contractual works are secured with contractors providing contractual bonds to those agencies.

For example, projects such as the construction of pump stations and farm-to-market roads, supply of equipment, and the rehabilitation of buildings and drainage and irrigation infrastructure are categories of works where advance payments are made only to the percentage stated in the contract. Interim payments are made for measured works completed in conjunction with the percentage of progress for these projects.

The writer has failed to present any evidence to support these outlandish claims. Instead, he has used his freedom of speech and a few column inches in a newspaper to make injudicious, unsubstantiated, moronic, and irresponsible statements.

The Ministry of Agriculture has worked and will continue to work to ensure transparency and accountability in all of its operations. I wish to urge the writer to be responsible in his reporting rather than to abuse the privilege of having a space in a newspaper to spew lies and misinformation. The writer is therefore invited to come into the ministry to get a better understanding of the procedures that follow the award of contracts.

Janell Cameron,

Public Relations Officer,

Ministry of Agriculture

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