Opposition mocks Pres. Ali’s public shaming of ministers, engineers

Nov 14, 2024 News

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…says govt. trying to save face from corrupt award of contracts, poor performance

Kaieteur News-The two main opposition parties- People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) on Wednesday poured cold water on President Irfaan Ali’s public shaming of his ministers as well as engineers and contractors for poor performance and oversight of public infrastructural projects.

Ali unleashed an early morning tirade against several of his ministers, including the respected Dr. Ashni Singh, Priya Manickchand and Pentecostal Pastor, Bishop Juan Edghill as well as a number of State contractors and engineers owing to the delays in the completion of several contracts amounting to several billions of dollars. The rebuke of the officials was livestreamed, creating a spectacle of what many referred to as micromanagement by the President. Several others felt that the meeting should have been held behind closed doors and does little to solve the inherent weaknesses grounded in the public procurement system and also nepotism in the awarding of contracts.

Seizing the opportunity to criticise the government, the AFC said it is well established that the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) along with the pool of evaluators are under immense criticism for recommendations to procuring entities, of contract awards to questionable contractors. According to the AFC, the team of evaluators have been blamed publicly for using arbitrary evaluation criteria in the determination of contract awards and in some instances, the lowest evaluated bidders are not even recommended for contract awards.

“The President in his infamous 5:30 am, meeting [Tuesday] sought to assign blame to the permanent secretaries, engineers and contractors for incomplete projects. The hypocrisy is perverse, ironic and mind blowing as it is the government’s institutional system which facilitated the award of these contracts that the President so laments are incomplete; and now blames public servants rather than his subject ministers.”

The AFC questioned whether it is a misguided attempt to save his government face from allegations of corruption through the national procurement system, now that 2025 elections looms?

“A perusal of contract awards recommended by NPTAB demonstrates an inequitable distribution of same in an already fractured society – unequal income gap, marginalised businesses (perceived as non-supporters of the current administration) and limited practice of procuring goods and services in rural communities,” the AFC said, adding; “these practices are fostering the inequality of opportunities for the population in construction and services in oil rich Guyana, where billions are expended for procurement, most notably in construction projects. And it is clear that a small percentage of the chosen elite benefit from government procurement – the lion share is concentrated and allocated to the few while the masses are given the crumbs in manual labour contracts. Are all groups benefiting equally from Guyana’s oil revenues?”

According to the AFC, Government procurement which is also referred to as public procurement or public tendering is the procurement of goods and services on behalf of a public authority, such as a government agency. “Research has shown that in countries with high levels of corruption (Guyana CPI score is 40) less money is spent on welfare such as health and education but massive investments are made on infrastructure spending which offer a greater potential for bribery and minimise the risk of subsequent auditing.” The AFC said it is now an established norm that public procurement contract awards are failing to start at stipulated time, sub-standard or incomplete work along with those contracts which have been recalled by the Ministry of Public Works. One of the most infamous contract awards to Tepui Group Inc for the construction of the Belle Vue pump station failed most of the evaluation criteria and has failed the project timelines with the mobilisation fund of $160.8M. “This has even engaged the attention of the Auditor General. Yet, Tepui Group Inc has been awarded another multi-million contract from the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CHPA) and as revealed in the infamous 5:30am meeting, this project is also more than four months delayed.”

“It is no secret that Tepui’s principal, Mikhail Rodrigues known as Guyanese Critics is closely affiliated with the Vice President. Some evaluators have refused to sign off on contract awards and some have resigned when such questionable and controversial contract awards recommendations are made to procuring entities.”

The Alliance For Change said too that it has observed that public servants have been thrown in the deep end and publicly shamed and blamed for breaches in the procurement system while NPTAB sits on the sidelines. “In this context, the AFC would like to encourage public servants that their responsiveness to the government of the day has limits. The principle of constrained partisanship places limitation on responsiveness. Public servants are career bureaucrats and are expected to serve alternate governments with equal loyalty and responsiveness as – ‘apolitical.’ An obvious slant of partisanship to one government can undermine confidence to serve a subsequent government.  The AFC reminds that if there is a crisis of obligation between the conflicting demands of ministers and their higher loyalty to parliament and the public interest, the latter is above the interest of the government of the day. “

The AFC said it supports the principle of integrity in public office which obligates public servants to act professionally and not politically. “Reject and if not possible, document all acts which you regard as either illegal or unethical. It is documentation which will ultimately protect and save you. Integrity goes beyond what is required in the law and includes professional judgment in procedural values of fairness, honesty and accountability in government institutions such as, fairness in handling a public tender or accuracy in framing public information. The AFC encourages all public servants to be fearless in executing their functions. Your loyalty is to the Country not the unethical and or illegal requests of the politicians,” the statement concluded.

Great concern

For its part, the PNCR said it is with great concern and alarm that Guyanese watched the live-streamed meeting between President Ali with government ministers, permanent secretaries, engineers, contractors, and consultants. The President summoned the officials, the PNCR said to vent his frustration over the large number of incomplete and stalled projects across the government ministries. “Guyanese were able to witness the President and the PPP government in their true colours: incompetent, disorganised and disordered, and arrogantly disrespectful. The public saw firsthand the level of chaos that has become endemic within the entire PPP administration. The entire public procurement system is in a planning and execution crisis. Hundreds of billions of dollars of the people’s money are at stake,” the PNCR said.

According to the party, instead of seeking to analyse the root causes of the problem and proposing solutions, President Ali chose to launch a disgraceful barrage of insults, put-downs, and threats on the public servants, who are least to be blamed for the government’s outright inability to plan and manage. “His juvenile behaviour was misdirected and only served to undermine the morale of our dedicated professionals. President Ali and his government must take full responsibility for these massive failures in the management of public funds. To fix such failures, a clean and competent government would have spent time to review system capacities, resources availability, its policies and approaches, legislation and institutions, the performance of supply chains, operation bottlenecks, and the role and extent of corruption. But the corrupt PPP is no such government.”

The PNCR said the PPP is in a state of panic as the inflated contracts awarded to its friends, families and favourites fail to meet deadlines and quality standards and to satisfy the Guyanese people. “Contractors who have performed poorly over the years continue to get contracts. Persons with no experience in construction of large infrastructure continue to win contract awards through the corrupt NPTAB. The monitoring and evaluation system has become politicized and dysfunctional. This growing wastage of financial resources through negligence, incompetence, and corruption is one of the main symptoms of the Natural Resource Curse. The more oil revenues the government spends, the greater will be this curse.”

The PNCR said President Ali must shift his focus from finger-pointing and blame-throwing to confronting the real source of the problem. “The true source of this crisis lies within the government itself — particularly with its corrupt practices and with the ministers who have consistently failed to perform and deliver on their mandates. Normally, one would issue a call for them to be fired and replaced. But with this PPP regime, should that occur, they would only be replaced with political cronies just as useless and crooked. Let us remind Guyanese that close to $G700B was allocated for capital works in 2024. We call on the President to submit for public scrutiny a written report on the status of all large government projects. Where is the value for money of all this allocation? What are the checks to prevent an end-of-year rush to disburse the entire 2024 budgeted sums? Where are the reforms to the public procurement system? President Ali must fully account to the nation.” “Alas, we harbour no hope that anything will change, knowing how the PPP operates. The entire livestreamed meeting served merely as a political ploy and scapegoating tactic.  The country deserves better. The country deserves leadership that is respectful, accountable, effective and puts people first and at the centre of development. The time for endless failures, diversionary politics, and massive financial losses is over. The PPP continues to fail badly. At the next election, Guyanese must put them out of their misery.

(Opposition mocks Pres. Ali’s public shaming of ministers, engineers)

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• Alliance For Change, Government procuremen, Juan Edghill, National Procurement and Tender Administration Board, Peoples National Congress Reform

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