Reg. 1 RDC under APNU+AFC government awarded $60M in contracts without public tendering

Reg. 1 RDC under APNU+AFC government awarded $60M in contracts without public tendering – PAC hears

Jul 26, 2024 News

Kaieteur News – The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Monday learned that under the former A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) government, the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) of Region One breached the procurement process by awarding $60 million in contracts without adhering to the public tendering requirements.

Regional Executive Officer of Region One, Mr. Sewchand

The findings documented in the Auditor General’s 2019 Report were on Monday questioned by PAC member and Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill.

“An examination of records and documentation for the awarding of contracts by the Regional Tender Board revealed the following: According to the regulations made under the Procurement Act 2003 – Amendment of Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 to the Principal Regulations, Item 2, ‘The threshold foreseen in section 27(1) of the Act for use of the request for quotations method of procurement shall be $3,000,000’. It was discovered that the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) breached the aforementioned regulations since the three-quote method of procurement was utilised for ten contracts totalling $60.567M. These purchases should have been publicly advertised and adjudicated by the Regional Tender Board due to the value exceeding the limit of $3M. A similar situation occurred in 2018 where procurement was done above the prescribed threshold in four instances totalling $17.678M,” the Report stated.

Minister Edghill asked the Regional Executive Officer (REO) Mr. Sewchand (only name) whether the minutes of the tender board for the awards were made available to him, and if not, whether he checked for the minutes.

Mr. Sewchand, who was appointed REO earlier this year, in his response said, “I checked for the minutes and I am not in receipt of those minutes.”

Edghill questioned further, “Now if the three-quote method was being used, there’s a limit. Could you say why or have you been advised because you weren’t the REO then? I’m sure you knew that I was coming here to answer you. You would have asked some questions to see if you could get answers here. Could you say why this occurred and what were these projects for?”

Mr. Sewchand explained that he tried to inquire about the procurement and why the breaches occurred but the documents were not available. He made attempts to contact the previous REO but his efforts were futile.

Further, Edghill questioned which contracts amounted to $60M. A representative of the Audit Office in response said, “For the three-quote method that we were querying in paragraph 1208 (were for the) supply of 237 KVA generator – $8.2 million, purchase of priority medical equipment – $7.9 million, purchase of health equipment – $7.8 million, purchase of priority medical equipment – $7.4 million, supply of electrical hardware items – $5.9 million, supply of one caterpillar generator set – $5.9 million, supply of electrical hardware items – $5 million, supply of two 70 by 60 smart board – $4.7 million, supply of one outboard engine, one 40HP outboard engine and one 18 HP outboard engine – $3.7 million, purchase of priority medical equipment – Health Department – $3.4 million and that would have given us the $60.5 million.”

Following up, Edghill indicated that the contracts clearly show that most of the purchases were part of the Region’s capital budget at the time.

“So why didn’t we advertise and follow the process?” he asked.

Quoting from the Audit Report, the minister said that a similar situation occurred in 2018 where procurement was done above the prescribed threshold in four instances totalling $17.678 million.

“So this is a systemic problem, it’s not that we had an emergency, it happened in 2018 and it happened in 2019,” he said.

The REO was asked to provide the absent tender documents relative to the contracts. He committed to getting them.

Meanwhile, Mr. Sewchand assured that since taking office, he has put systems in place to improve procurement practices.

“I had put mechanism in place in terms of using the best procurement for the provisions of goods and services,” he said.

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Government, Juan Edghill, Minister of Public Works, Mr. Sewchand, Regional Executive Officer of Region One

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