‘$28M contract to Region 8 engineer was never blocked’

Oct 10, 2024 News

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– Works were completed, inspected in September by ministers – Mahipaul

Kaieteur News – As the controversy surrounding a government engineering bidding and winning a contract in his home district of Region Eight continues to grow, Member of Parliament, Ganesh Mahipaul on Wednesday said that contrary Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo the $28M contract was never blocked. He said that the project was completed and government ministers actually visited to check off on the works.

Kaieteur News has been reporting that Regional Engineer for Region Eight, Latchman Singh through his company , Lene’s Contracting Enterprise had won the contract to execute rehabilitation and construction of the Princeville Road, Region Eight, but Jagdeo said when government found out about the issue the contract was blocked.

Mahipaul however told Kaieteur News on Wednesday that the facts paint a different picture. “The contract was awarded in May, and by September, the work had been fully completed. This directly contradicts Jagdeo’s claim. If the contract had truly been blocked, how the project was completed on time?” Mahipaul queried.  Additionally, Mahipaul said Ministers Juan Edghill, Pauline Sukhai and Sonia Parag inspected the project during their Ministerial Outreach in Region 8 on September 11, 2024. “This raises a critical question: if the project had been blocked as Jagdeo claimed, why did these ministers take time to inspect a project that was supposedly halted?”

Moreover, Mahipaul said key questions need to be answered by Ministers Edghill and Deodat Indar: Was the contractor paid?; how much was he paid and when was the payment made.

Furthermore, the MP asked which engineer measured the work to determine how much was to be paid and whether it was Latchman Singh himself. Mahipaul also wants to know which engineer signed off on the work as satisfactorily completed and whether it was Latchman Singh himself.  “To settle this matter, the public deserves the truth. We need to see the signed documents that show which engineer authorised the payment and certified the work as complete. If it was Latchman Singh, as suspected, then Jagdeo’s claim of blocking the contract is not just misleading, it is entirely false. We call on the Government to provide the proof and disclose the signed documents that reveal the truth about who signed off on this project.

Distraction

Meanwhile, Mahipaul has insisted that Jagdeo’s declaration that the contract was blocked owing to conflict of interest was actually calculated to distract attention away from the bigger picture. According to Mahipaul, Singh is no stranger to the Ministry of Public Works and Amerindian Affairs. “Our intelligence is clear: whenever PPP/C ministers grace Region 8, they are wined and dined at Lene’s Restaurant and Bar, owned by the same individual behind Lene’s Contracting Enterprise,” Mahipaul said.

He explained that there was an instance where Singh stood before the Public Accounts Committee and accused a Regional Executive Officer (REO) of directing him to undertake illegal activities under the APNU/AFC administration. “But one must ask, who directed him to open a contracting company and who is instructing him to do wrong things now? Could it be a PPP/C Minister pulling the strings behind the scenes?” he questioned.

He advised that the citizens must not be deceived by surface level optics and the government wants them to believe that they are addressing the issues, however “this is just a calculated distraction.” Mahipaul is of the opinion that the government “knows full well who this engineer is, and they continue to enable his actions in Region 8. Now, with elections on the horizon, they are attempting to sell us on a false narrative of reform.”

Furthermore, Mahipaul disclosed that there is a PPP/C Regional Councillor in Region 8, reportedly very close to Minister of Amerindian Affairs, Pauline Sukhai. Mahipaul said the said contractor receives a lot of contracts in Region One. “The time will come when their names, faces, and company will be exposed. But make no mistake—this is the most corrupt government Guyana has ever seen and we cannot allow ourselves to be blindsided by their games,” he said.

On Monday, this publication reported that Singh was told to decide whether he wants to be an employee of the State or work as a private contractor after he had won the $28M contract through the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB).

While responding to a Stabroek News editorial last week at his newspaper, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo exposed the issue. He said there are complaints that persons may be influenced or they may be violating procurement laws because of instructions they receive or they may even lack awareness of the law and what it has provisions in place for. However, he said the current administration has embarked on a campaign to fix all of this and they have made it clear that non-adherence to the law will not be tolerated at a political level. “So people know now that they are responsible for compliance with the procurement laws and that they will bear the consequences should we find breach. We have already seen that from the time we spoke on one visit to Region Eight last week, we got a number of things,” he said.

Giving an example of one such situation where the laws were breached, he told reporters of the case with Singh. “One engineer there in the region…so he is based in Mahdia and then put in a bid through the public process, an open bidding process but through NPTAB and got a contract for $28M because they just looked at whoever had the best bid, but this guy is also the regional engineer.” The engineer however did not submit his bid through the regional system, instead he submitted via an open public tender, and received the bid to do work in Mahdia. “Now if you’re an engineer and you’re based in Mahdia working for the RDC and you’re the contractor for a project in Mahdia, people wouldn’t care if it’s NPTAB that gave that and you participated in an open bid, this is the kind of conflict I spoke of,” Jagdeo stressed.

The VP is of the opinion that as an employee of the government, you cannot also be a contractor for government project as well, hence the engineer will have to make a choice which path to follow as he cannot assume both roles. Additionally, a number of other issues were exposed to the officials during the outreach and the government is working to address them, Jagdeo said.  “People are now bringing this to our attention, we didn’t know the NPTAB didn’t know I asked them, they said we don’t know this guy is the regional engineer, he bid through an open process. They did not know. Once this comes to our attention, people have to make a determination,” the VP said.

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• administration, Latchman Singh, Ministers Edghill, Region Eight, Road, Vice President Bharrat

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