Guyana
Whenever challenged about its longstanding nemesis, corruption, the preferred refrain from the ruling PPP/C is always for the claimant to present the evidence. That ruse has been employed as the PPP/C has been well aware that such evidence is difficult to come by and that many who could speak are too spineless or intimidated. Forty-four months into the life of this administration evidence is certainly now available in the report of the Public Procurement Commission’s (PPC) summary of findings based on a complaint lodged by APNU+AFC Member of Parliament David Patterson.
It has taken six months for the PPC to complete its task but its Summary of Findings, Tender No. 166/2023/21 should be required reading for President Irfaan Ali. In it he will find stark evidence of how the evaluation committee of the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) violated many of the guidelines attached to the invitation for bids for the Belle Vue Pump Station so that the award could be made to Tepui Inc, one of whose principals is Mikhail Rodrigues better known as Guyanese Critic.
Tepui was required to have had the experience of having completed one project of a similar nature within the past five years. Similar projects, the relevant guideline said, “shall include pump stations, sluices and drainage structures”. Having been incorporated less than a year before, Tepui did not have these qualifications, yet the evaluation committee of the NPTAB found its bid to be responsive.
The summary of findings said that Tepui itself submitted as part of its tender, a letter addressed to the procuring agency, National Drainage and Irrigation Authority dated June 13th, 2023, under the hand of “Winston Martindale, Director” captioned “Record of Past Work Experience” in which it stated – “Our company was registered in August 2022 and has now commenced the process of bidding for projects, hence we do not have any past work experience but our team of personnel have years of experience under upgrading and rehabilitation of roads as indicated on their respective resumes.”
Tepui also did not provide a bank line of credit. It provided a line of credit issued by Puran Bros. Later a letter of credit issued by Caricom General Insurance Company appeared but this also was ineligible.
Tepui did not submit – as required – an audited financial statement as it was not in existence for a year.
In terms of equipment requirements, Tepui, the summary of findings said, did not show evidence of three pieces of equipment. It also fell short of its bid security requirement.
In any other well-ordered jurisdiction, Tepui’s bid would be immediately ruled out. One wonders how that bid was let in but many others rejected.
Why would an evaluation committee of the NPTAB favour Tepui and Mr Rodrigues? That answer probably lies in the fact that Mr Rodrigues has presented himself to the public as somebody well-connected to the government and perhaps the government wants him to have a contract. In several editorials and news items about the farcical award of the pump station contract to Tepui this newspaper has pointed out Mr Rodrigues’ ease of access to Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo and other signs of his connectedness to officialdom. So if an evaluation committee improperly favoured Mr Rodrigues it would likely be on signals from those in authority.
In its response to the PPC’s questions, the NPTAB also introduced the artifice of “leniency” in consideration of bids in utter contravention of the extant guidelines.
“The decisions regarding bid evaluation were consistent with past practices, where leniency was extended to bidders lacking direct pump station construction experience but demonstrating proficiency in similar projects”, said the NPTAB which then added most unbelievably, “Upholding principles of fairness, transparency, and accountability, NPTAB assures of its commitment to maintaining integrity and professionalism in procurement processes”.
No further evidence is needed of corruption under this government as it relates to the massive public expenditure programme that is administrated by the NPTAB. There should be a criminal investigation of the conduct of the evaluation committee, an immediate pulling of the files associated with this tender so that the police can probe the circumstances under which other bids were disallowed and the board of the NPTAB and its senior leadership should be removed immediately, a task that would be left to the President and/or the Ministry of Finance. Needless to say, the Tepui contract should be immediately cancelled.
It was not only Tepui that was favourably looked at even though unqualified. The NPTAB had the gumption to advise the PPC that a precedent had been set by the award of similar pump station contracts to others who also did not have the requisite experience. It cited the construction of a pump station at Devonshire Castle, Region Two which was awarded to Samaroo Investments and the Den Amstel pump station in Region Three to JR Ranch Inc. J/V GSK Excavation Services. The Pouderoyen pump station also falls into this category although there was no mention of this by the NPTAB.
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Guyana
The Regional Administration of Region Seven breached the Procurement Act of 2003 when it awarded $22 million in contracts without public tendering, the Auditor General’s report of 2023 revealed.
The contract awards surpassed the legal limit of $3million.
According to the Auditor General, the regulations made under the Procurement Act 2003 – Amendment of Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 to the Principal Regulations, Item 2, stipulates that “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.”
However, upon examination, the Audit Office discovered that the Regional Administration expended amounts totaling $22.969 million for the supply of dietary supplies for D.C Caesar Fox Secondary Dormitory through the processing of four Payment Vouchers.
“The Regional Democratic Council (RDC) breached the aforementioned regulations since the three-quote method of procurement was utilised. These purchases should have been publicly advertised and adjudicated by the Regional Tender Board due to the value exceeding the limit of $3M,” the AG pointed out.
Providing a breakdown of the $22 million purchases, the Audit Office detailed that the dietary supplies including flour, sugar, milk, blackeye peas, and butter among others were bought for $5,626,000.
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Jamaica
ST JAMES, Jamaica — Senior law lecturer at Bangor University in Wales, Dr Ama Eyo, is calling for more sustainable procurement practices that shun corruption, bribery and collusion.
According to Dr Eyo, research shows that an estimated 10 to 20 per cent of the entire money spent on public procurement globally is wasted on bribery and corruption and only 2.81 per cent of contracts are publicly reported.
“When you are utilising the procurement system under procurement law this should not be practised… what we’re doing today around empowerment, training and development of expertise should go a long way in changing the mental well-being on how we look at the impact of corruption on procurement and it should give you some control to resist those unethical practices,” Dr Eyo was quoted as highlighting in a release from the Ministry of Finance and Planning.
She was delivering a lecture on day three of the Elevate Procurement Conference at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in St James on Thursday.
The three-day conference was held under the theme, ‘Elevate: Innovate, Create’ and hosted over 500 attendees, comprising suppliers of goods, services and works, public procurement oversight institutions, and international and regional procurement practitioners, among others.
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The Bahamas
FINANCIAL Secretary Simon Wilson rebuffed a claim in the United States’ latest human rights report that The Bahamas is failing to effectively implement laws related to contracts and procurement.
The report said the country has limited enforcement of conflict-of-interest and anti-corruption clauses in government contracts.
Mr Wilson said that the government has made improvements to fulfil its obligations under the Public Procurement Act.
“I think the procurement reform is an ongoing process,” he said yesterday on the sidelines of an event launching Cloud Bahamas.
“We have made great strides in procurement reform. Obviously, it’s not a flat standard, and each country and each situation is different.”
Mr Wilson said of the US report: “That’s a very broad statement, not reflective of the efforts we have made in terms of procurement reform.
I will say they will have to provide more specifics on that.
“We are a very small country, so obviously it’s very hard to have people unrelated in this country.
“They have to provide specific examples where there was a clear conflict of interest where the government didn’t act.”
Critics have repeatedly criticised the government for lacking transparency over procurement processes and awards. The financial secretary said the frequency of contract award reporting has increased, adding that full compliance will contribute to transparency.
He noted that the government aims to ensure that all agencies use the GoBonfire online portal to bid and award procurement deals.
“I will say that procurement compliance is a work in progress. We are more compliant than we were two years ago. In a year’s time, we will be more compliant,” he added.
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Trinidad and Tobago
The Procurement Act is being fully implemented during a period of low economic growth and stagnation. Oil production is a shadow (25 per cent) of its high point in 1978, and natural gas is 40 per cent below its peak. Declining foreign reserves and foreign exchange shortages indicate both a weakening energy sector and a private sector that is not growing fast enough to compensate for the energy sector’s weaknesses. Achieving economic growth is challenging absent any upward movement in the price of petrochemicals and other energy exports. Government expenditure needs to be rationalised and prioritised.
Given these realities, the mechanisms introduced by the act are an opportunity to make changes. But there are no shortcuts, no silver bullet that simplifies the adjustments required by the act. The Office of Procurement Regulator (OPR) understands the size of its task, and Section 3 of its handbook entitled “Training Standards Competence Levels and Certification Requirements” Version 1, published in 2020, identifies the gaps between the act’s requirements and the current state of readiness. The information presented in the report is based on data and statistics obtained from stakeholder engagements, the findings of a capacity assessment report, and the Auditor General’s 2019 Report.
It identifies the historical issues as poor data collection and reporting, the absence of a central electronic public information system, lack of a national registry, multiplicity in the tendering process, and a “shortage of trained procurement staff in public bodies.” The Auditor General’s 2019 report is worse. It noted poor internal controls, non-adherence to financial and regulatory guidelines, poor document management systems, weak asset management, limited human resources, and inadequate segregation of duties. The report also noted a lack of coordination between ministries and no provision for business continuity in a disaster.
To address these deficiencies, the OPR surveyed attendees at capacity-building workshops to assess capacity levels. The information was used to assess capacity gaps in public bodies among those officers charged with the responsibility for public procurement. The survey results and the percentages quoted refer only to those who responded. Accordingly, one can infer that if all public bodies responded, the results could be much worse. Only 31.3 per cent of the public bodies that responded had staff with the necessary theoretical knowledge and analytical skills required to adequately perform this critical function.
Further, the survey revealed a significant deficiency in the skill levels of officers charged with the responsibility for procurement. The handbook concluded that this was evidence of the limited importance placed on these roles in public bodies and highlighted the need for “appropriate qualifications and skills to make a strategic impact.”
In addition, 77 per cent of those designated as “procurement officers” lacked decision-making authority in the procurement and disposal process. This means that those charged with procurement responsibility have limited scope to ensure that the process accords with the act and its regulations. Yet the act makes these procurement officers liable for wrongdoing or failure in the procurement process.
Following this evaluation, the OPR set training standards, competence levels, and training requirements for procurement officers. The standard is structured in three parts and defines the skill sets and training required at each level. In addition to the standards, a Readiness Assessment Checklist was developed to guide public bodies in the convergence exercise to comply with the requirements of the act. This includes the development of a code of conduct to guide both procurement officers within the public bodies and the contractor and supplier with whom they must interact.
The readiness document recognises that certification requirements must be matched by improvements in internal control, without which procurement changes would be ineffective. It also recognises the need for compensating modifications to the organisational structure to incorporate these changes. The foregoing requires phased planning and implementation. These changes also call for training and system improvements, which would also require a different level of expenditure and process to manage those changes.
The takeaway from the foregoing is that there are significant deficiencies in the way public bodies (government ministries, state enterprises, et al) are currently structured. In short, when there are complaints of corruption, they are also due to systemic errors. For example, the current “war” with the Auditor General is due to a significant systemic weakness that the Finance Minister has attempted to pass off as a computer glitch and signals weak controls that failed to detect the error for a significant time.
The Procurement Act must be viewed primarily as a critical step in improving the functioning of public bodies by addressing the underlying systemic weaknesses. The difficulty is making it work. A former minister commenting on last week’s column noted, “I wonder if we can and are willing to pay for all the things we say we need. Where is the money to come from? We have to establish priorities and accept that we can’t get all we want.” Such choices are necessary but never easy. If the country wants good roads, schools and improved public service delivery, then those choices must be made, explained, owned and financed by the public purse. Change requires leadership to initiate and drive the process and management to ensure it works, continuously.
Mariano Browne is the Chief Executive Officer of the UWI Arthur Lok Jack Global School of Business.
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