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Contracts and contractors

Mar 02, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – It looks like somebody in government has put a contract on Guyanese.  It might be more accurate to posit that the PPPC Government, in its many agencies and functionaries, have taken out a contract on helpless Guyanese taxpayers.  Billions upon billions in contracts for public works are awarded to mostly favored contractors, and the more they are handed out to cronies, the more controversies they raise, and the more coverups seem to be the order of the day.  The Guyanese taxpayer always end up paying, is never less than the perpetual loser.

According to Opposition Member of Parliament, Mr. Ganesh Mahipaul, work on contracts awarded for pump stations are yet to begin.  This is despite a half year elapsing since the award of the contract.  The weather was favorable for most of last year, hence it could not have been a factor.  The issue is whether the contract was given to the wrong contractor, who is now not able to perform in keeping with the contract terms.  When we say wrong contractor, our focus is on access to the required financing ($1.7B), which may be proving to be out of reach.  There is the concern that the type of equipment needed to get the job done is not part of the resources of the winning contractor.  By saying the ‘wrong’ contractor, the questions for the six months and counting delay in starting could be about possession of the necessary skills and experience to deliver pursuant to the contract terms.

Nobody wins a $1.7B contract and then sits on it for six months.  No contractor, no matter how closely connected to powerful political people, should be given a free pass when he or his group is hanging by a thread, and holds a Guyanese community hostage.

There have been too many of these so-called winning bids, with too many questions surfacing about the propriety of the tender decision-making process.  Many are afraid to speak out of fear of losing out for good on any bids that they make.  To put differently, they do their best through tight silence maintained, so that the dreaded mark of being placed on a blacklist is not theirs.  The National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) has been more concerned about maintaining silence than shedding any light on how it arrives at tender decisions that raise many questions, and which leave local taxpayers in a hole.  If this $1.7B award for pump stations was the only one that has made the news in recent times, it could be counted as an unusual event with little significance.  But that is not the case. For there has been a much bigger contract award that has generated no end of controversy, with no answers coming from any official source.

NPTAB had awarded a contract for $865M for a pump station in Belle Vue, West Demerara.  Questions were raised about the quality (credentials) of the winning bidder, which left NPTAB looking in less than a favorable light.  Opposition Member of Parliament, Mr. David Patterson, wrote to the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) over two months ago to get some clarity on what took place with the suspect award.  Silence and stonewalling have been what has come from the PPC.  The PPC is part of the check and balance that is in place to get to the bottom of just such a situation.  Instead of representing the interests of Guyanese taxpayers for a contract that is in the vicinity of a billion dollars, the PPC has been content to manifest a largely lame duck status.  The first surprise was that it was encountering difficulties in getting NPTAB to release the pertinent tender documents.  Since then, the PPC has been a study in weakness and limpness.  It cannot move, it has no answers to provide, and it is content to let matters linger in that state of extended suspense.

Whether it is only one instance, or two, that made it into the public domain, the fact remains that local taxpayers are taken for a ride over and over and year after year.  Parliamentary committees meet, the media reports, a few citizens voice their outrage, then it is back to business with nobody penalized.

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