The chief officer in the ministry of tourism told the Public Accounts Committee Thursday that KPMG is guiding government through the procurement process of the cruise ship dock after Cabinet recently gave the green light to press ahead with the controversial development. Stran Bodden told PAC that the overall project was being coordinated and led by the steering committee made up of a cross-section of government agencies. But CNS has learned from two reliable sources that the committee has not met since 1 August last year, despite the significant developments since then.
Bodden also revealed that the various entities that will be invited to tender in the final part of the procurement process, which must now follow legislation that came into effect on 1 May, will be following a set design. The revised plans are said to push the piers further into the ocean, which was an effort to try to minimise dredging. But Bodden said the plans fix the length and breadth of the piers as well as the pilings in accordance with the cruise ships’ requirements, though the winning bidder will have the discretion on how best to lay them out.
Bodden was unable to answer questions about the new dangers that pushing the piers further out will pose to Seven Mile Beach and said that whoever wins the bid will be responsible for just updating the original environmental impact assessment but will not necessarily be required to look at the impact on the world famous beach once the final plan is settled and the tender awarded.
The entire project remains opaque, with major decisions apparently being made behind closed doors with limited input from a handful of key public sector managers and politicians. Claims by Bodden that it is being managed by the steering committee seem at odds with reality, given that it is now more than nine months since the members of that committee met.
This means that the pre-qualification process, which was followed by an invitation to submit solutions and then a decision to narrow down the field to just three finalists, have all happened in the absence of direction from the steering committee.
Despite government claims to the contrary, the cost of the project is now estimated to be in excess of $250 million and exactly how it will be funded remains a well-guarded secret. KPMG, which is now said to be assisting government with the entire tender documentation, was originally contracted to help find a financing solution, but it is still not clear what that is and whether they were able to work out how the government can, as it has stated on numerous occasions, avoid the liability for the costly proposal.
How the construction of the pier plus the twin project of renovating and expanding the existing cargo section will be managed while still hosting cruise ships has not been revealed and government has been almost silent about its effort to relocate coral. Nor have officials revealed the plans to protect the marine environment during the construction period and what, if any, contingency plans exist if evidence emerges that Seven Mile Beach, as many local experts believe, will be impacted.
The project is becoming increasingly less popular as time goes by, as evidenced by the growth in opposition comment across all local social media platforms, particularly on the extensive public input from readers on CNS. The recent revelations about the significant management problems and what may also be a police investigation into the financial irregularities exposed by the auditor general at the port may further fuel the opposition to the project.
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Without a doubt, challenges abound when managing or implementing projects. Two years ago, United States procurement service provider, DeltaBid, conducted a survey of 500 procurement professionals to identify what they considered the biggest obstacles they faced on a daily basis. The results outlined below, are the ten biggest procurement challenges, and the accompanying infographic summarises the entire survey exercise.
10. Managing the RFx process
Regardless of whether it is a Request for Proposal, Request for Quotation, Request for Expressions of Interest, etc., managing those processes can be a challenge. Procedures ought to be clear, fair and rigorously implemented, and so can be a tremendous undertaking to the procurement team, and the associated support resources.
9. Time/Delays
More often than not, projects are being implemented with a sense of urgency – the outputs are urgently needed. It rarely happens that a project’s outputs are secured well in advance of when they might actually be required. It therefore means that in the majority of situations, there is the added pressure to deliver the outputs consistent with the timelines agreed. Hence, when, for example, actual lead times, or the time required to source certain materials, end up being considerably more than that anticipated or scheduled, it can thwart the entire project.
8. Recruiting, retaining, and training talent
As we noted in our recent article, QBS, QCBS, LCS: What are they, and how are they different?, procurement is a specialist field, and having knowledgeable and experienced personnel on the team is crucial. It thus means there is need to pay particular attention to securing and retaining that talent, and providing the requisite support in relation to skills upgrade and continuing professional development. However, due to the specialist nature of the area, there is a growing demand for such talent, with firms finding it difficult to retain such staff on a long-term basis.
7. Finding the right tools
For particularly large projects that have several components and moving parts, it is essential to have tools that can help the team manage projects more efficiently and effectively. However, finding the right tools – the best for team and/or for the project – can be challenge. Further, the wrong tools can further complicate, and even undermine, what might already be challenging situations.
6. Risk mitigation
As outlined in our article, 5 tips for managing risk in projects, projects are fraught with all types of risks, which need to be managed for successful completion of a project. Some of the risks the DeltaBid survey respondents identified included, “managing sole supplier contracts, reducing maverick spend, and dealing with compliance issues”.
5. Managing stakeholders
Across a project there tends to be diverse interests that need to be managed. Some interests have a direct impact on the project, whilst others would be indirect. However, even among those that have a direct impact, some might be more important than others, or have different influences on the project. It thus means that it can be a challenge to coordinate and manage the various stakeholders (and their interests) that contribute to a successful and well-executed project.
4. Accurate data
On big projects, or for a team that is managing multiple projects, it is crucial to have access to accurate data to ensure timely and well-informed decisions. Data becomes even more important when it has to be communicated to others, particularly senior management, or others who do not have intimate knowledge about a particular project, but may nonetheless have tremendous influence with respect to its execution.
3. Reducing costs and achieving savings
It is a frequently desired goal to have a project completed on time and under budget. For the latter, it means trying to reduce costs and/or finding ways to realise some savings. However, there are a host of reasons why most projects never achieve this, including being under budgeted in the first place, and the increased prices for goods and services, when the project finally get executed. However, such circumstances may result in the parts of the project being minimised or even omitted, to try to keep the overall project within the budget allocated. Hence vigilance with respect to project budget and spend can be a stressful part of managing a project.
2. Strategy selection
Increasingly, procurement is moving from just being an operational function to one that has strategic value to organisations. However, understanding that strategic value, and figuring out how it can be implemented, especially when it may need to be coordinated across multiple locations, or across very distinct functional units or categories of business, can be a distinct challenge.
1. Supplier-related issues
Finally, the greatest challenge procurement professionals indicated were matters related to suppliers – from identifying the best suppliers, and ensuring that a stable supply of quality materials can be maintained, to monitoring supplier performance. Along that spectrum, suppliers also need to be continually monitored to ensure that they deliver what they say they will deliver, within the timelines and to the quality agreed.
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Even as the Guyana government slammed the People’s Progressive Party’s (PPP) filing of private criminal charges of misconduct in public office against two government ministers as an effort to distract the public from its record of corruption, Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo said more charges would be filed against other ministers.
“The charges that were filed today against the current and former Minister of Public Health is the PPP’s cowardly attempt to draw public attention away from its own sordid record of corruption while in office,” Minister of State, Joseph Harmon said in a statement.
However, Jagdeo recalled that his party had long spoken about private charges, and his party was now merely using government’s standard of misconduct in public office by way of three counts connected to the sale of three large tracts of land of more than GY$900 million by former Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh and former Head of the National Industrial, Commercial and Investments Limited (NICIL).
Reiterating that Singh and Brassington had acted on his Cabinet’s approval, Jagdeo put the David Granger-led administration on public notice that more charges would be laid against political functionaries. ‘This is not the end so we are not stopping at these charges. There are several others who would be charged,” he said.
And the Minister of State also said more charges would be laid against former functionaries of the Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar-led People’s Progressive Party Civic administrations. “The PPP is aware that more charges are soon to be filed against high public officials who served under the Jagdeo and Ramotar administrations. These charges are a result of months of intense investigation by Commissions of Inquiries and evidence gathered by the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) of the Guyana Police Force,” said Harmon.
The State Minister said Guyanese would “not be swayed by the legal shenanigans of the PPP, which, in effect, make a mockery of the legal system.” “This Government will continue to take the necessary steps to ensure that those who held public office and engaged in malfeasance while in office are brought to justice.”
With the Special Organised Crime Unit of the Guyana Police Force having already arrested and questioned Jagdeo and several other former government ministers about the sale of housing lands at Goedverwagting-Sparendaam (Pradoville2), the former Guyanese leader said he was not worried about being charged in connection with those transactions. “I don’t care! They will do what they have to do. I made it clear: you go ahead and you throw the worst at us because that is the expectation. They have approached this politically from the beginning,” said Jadgeo who enjoys immunity from legal action for acts carried out as president.
Now that summons have been issued for Minister of Public Health Volda Lawrence and former Minister of Public Health Dr. George Norton to appear in court on April 24, 2018 to answer the private criminal charges, the Minister of State said he was confident that they would win their cases.
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Projects financed by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) present significant business opportunities for the Region’s private sector. However, limited understanding of the procurement processes at CDB and the IDB pose challenges for the business community, and result in low or unsuccessful participation.
On Monday April 30, CDB and IDB co-hosted a procurement seminar aimed at developing the capacity of the Barbados private sector to take advantage of opportunities available through projects financed by both institutions.
Speaking at the opening of the event, entitled “Business Opportunities in Barbados – Procurement for CDB- and IDB-Financed Projects”, CDB’s Director of Projects, Daniel Best, said that the Barbados business community has played a crucial role in providing procurement for CDB projects.
“In terms of the monetary value of contracts awarded on CDB- financed projects, Barbados has been the third-largest recipient over the past seven years. It is also important to note that the local private sector has supported the successful implementation of CDB projects not just in Barbados but also across the Region,” said Best.
Francisco Javier Urra, Chief of Operations at the IDB Barbados Country Office, emphasized the transparency of the procurement policies and procedures of multilateral financial institutions such as the IDB and CDB.
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An internal audit into the operations at the National Insurance Board (NIB) has uncovered a scam involving the payout of close to $3 million in maternity benefits.
Four workers from the Insurance Operations Department at NIB offices in north Trinidad have been sent home with full pay pending the outcome of the investigations.
According to a source at the NIB, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, in mid last year, a woman visited the office of the executive director Niala Persad-Poliah, situated at NIB’s head office at Queen’s Park East, Port-of-Spain, and reported that she discovered approximately $30,000 in her bank account. The woman in her report stated that upon an inquiry with her bank on the origin of the hefty sum of money, she was told that it was her maternity benefit that was paid by the NIB.
However, the woman said she was never pregnant and therefore never applied for such benefit.
On the heels of her report, an internal auditor was mandated to carry out an audit of maternity benefit payments after it was brought to the attention of the audit committee of the Board and to the Board of Directors.
Almost one year later “no action has been taken,” according to NIB sources.
Employees claimed that one executive member is being “wrongly targeted” while those who are allegedly part of the scam “remain on the job.” Employees are now calling on Persad-Poliah “to give the public answers.”
In an immediate response, Persad-Poliah told the Sunday Guardian that whilst this was an ongoing investigation and the NIB could not directly comment, “the NIB takes a zero-tolerance approach to fraud.”
She said NIB has a robust Fraud Control Framework and “all allegations are thoroughly investigated utilising best practice methods, experience and expertise; a combination of well-trained in-house investigators, external consultants and the T&T Police Service Fraud Squad.”
Persad-Poliah said she was “unaware of such an allegation” that an executive member was being targeted. She said the NIB has an efficient and effective grievance policy that “provides employees with a mechanism to expeditiously resolve issues of concern.”
The maternity scam is said to be just one of other scams that have been allegedly discovered at NIB.
Last year, in the corporate communications department it was discovered that rooms were being “illegally” rented out for private functions, including weddings.
A member of the public who had paid money to host a wedding at a room at NIB’s head office reported the “illegal rental arrangement” to the office of the executive director.
“A worker resigned in the midst of this fiasco,” the NIB source said.
That worker, the source added, was also fingered in another scam. It was discovered that the worker was allegedly caught tampering and inflating bids submitted for the purchase of hot cross buns to ensure a family member received the baking contract.
“The billion-dollar enterprises usually give staff complementary hot cross buns in celebration of Easter. The distribution of the sweet delicacy is in keeping with NIB decision to show respect of all religious holidays. Snacks are also distributed to staff during Divali, Eid, and Christmas,” the source said.
With respect to that particular worker, Persad-Poliah confirmed that the individual is no longer with the NIB.
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