Auditor General exposes police in $15M contract-splitting breach

Nov 07, 2025 News

(Kaieteur News) – The 2024 Auditor General’s Report has uncovered that the Guyana Police Force (GPF) violated the Procurement Act of 2003 by illegally splitting contracts, awarding 62 contracts totaling $15.047 million without proper tender procedures.

Contract splitting, a tactic used to dodge transparency and oversight involves breaking a major project into smaller payments that fall below the threshold requiring scrutiny by the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB).

This practice, auditors warn, opens the door to fraud, including kickbacks and bid-rigging, by bypassing competitive bidding and independent review. The Procurement Act 2003 is unambiguous. Section 14 clearly states: “A procuring entity shall not split or cause to split contracts or divide or cause to divide its procurement into separate contracts where the sole purpose for doing so is to avoid the application of any provision of this Act,” the report said.

Nevertheless, it was observed from the sample selected during the audit that the act was breached by the GPF with the 62 contracts awarded for several projects throughout the Force. Looking at the values of these contracts, it gives the impression that the payments were deliberately subdivided to avoid adjudication by the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB), the reported noted. “The Police Force’s response stated that the head of the budget agency indicated that measures are put in place to avoid any reoccurrences. The audit office recommends that the head of the budget agency complies fully with the Procurement Act 2003,” the report further stated.

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Auditor General, contract splitting, GPF, police, Procurement Act

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