Guyana
GPL violated the Procurement Act in relation to a consultancy to oversee the new power distribution network for the Wales Gas-to-Energy (GtE) Plant, former Auditor General Anand Goolsarran says.
“Method4 Engineering stated that it never received any word on the contract award for the gas-to-energy project consultancy, and only learnt through the media last month that it was selected as far back as January 2025. If this was indeed so, then the procuring entity, in this case the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Inc, would have violated Section 39 of the Procurement Act,” Goolsarran told the Sta-broek Business as he also questioned the blackout on information regarding the contract from both the procuring entity and government. Controversy also erupted over the planned award to a Dominican Republic company, InterEnergy via sole sourcing.
Goolsarran said that questions such as – was Method4evaluated on the basis of its local operations could answer if it had or not met the experience requirement.
Government, GPL, and the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB), continue to remain mum on the details of the procurement
Chapter 39 of the Procurement Act which the former Auditor General referred to is summarised as follows: All tenders received from contractors or suppliers following the bid opening are required to be submitted to the Evaluation Committee appointed by the National Pro-curement and Tender Adminis-tration Board (NPTAB). The Committee then evaluates each tender and determines which tenderer has submitted the lowest evaluated bid, using only the evaluation criteria outlined in the tender documents. Having done so, the Evaluation Committee must convey its recommendation to the procuring entity [in this case the Guyana Power and Light Inc] within14 days.
Up to Tuesday August 26, Method4 told this newspaper that it had no formal word from GPL or anyone, regarding the tender.
Company Director, Adit Ganpat, said that there has been “nothing new” as he informed that he was also putting together a three-part response on the issue that would include a company profile, his profile, and details of the tender.
He earlier this month had told Stabroek News that he only learned through the media last month that the company had been selected in January this year for the gas-to-energy project consultancy as from the time it placed its bid in January of this year, it had never received any word on the contract award.
“We had no communication. We were not told we won the contract, nor told we did not win the work… we never heard anything officially. All the information we had on the contract was the one you got at the same time… in the media,” the Guyanese Canadian engineer had said.
“… We thought it is a budget thing because of maybe elections because we know a lot of these things [projects] go on standstill. So we were just kind of waiting and respecting the client’s process,” he added.
Method4 Engineering came under the spotlight when the government said that the company did not have the expertise for what it had bid for and that an agreement had been arrived at with the Dominican Republic company – InterEnergy, via sole sourcing.
Goolsarran has said that the planned award by GPL of the contract to InterEnergy Group (IEG), is in violation of this country’s Procurement Act and raises serious transparency questions that government should answer.
And since it was NPTAB that recommended the award of the contract to Method4, Goolsarran said that the matter raises the important question regarding the competence of that body and the Evaluation Committees appointed to assess proposals received.
GPL should also clarify and take blame for forwarding a faulty contract to Cabinet for its no-objection in the first place, Goolsarran posited as he gave an analysis of the controversial award.
GPL wrote to NPTAB on June 2 this year, requesting the annulment of the US$9 million tender to Method4 for consultancy works to supervise the distribution networks project, the Board told the Sunday Stabroek. The utility company also told NPTAB that it was in the process of seeking permission to sole source the contract.
The timeline would put the power company’s action a little over one week after advising Prime Minister Mark Phillips who had told the National Assembly that the contract had been awarded to Method4, to the tune of US$7 million.
When Stabroek News reached out to NPTAB about its role in the contract, it responded by saying that it had received a letter from GPL dated June 2, 2025 asking for the annulment of the award by NPTAB evaluators and that the utility company was in the process of seeking sole sourcing.
This newspaper understands that the utility company had not received a reply to its correspondence.
It is unclear why, for a contract that was opened since January 25 of this year, and for which NPTAB takes three to four weeks to evaluate, that GPL only sought to annul the contract in June and why Method4 was never notified.
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Dominican Republic
THE government of the Dominican Republic has launched an international tender for the first phase of a new monorail line in Santo Domingo. The project is designed to ease congestion and expand capacity in the capital’s rapidly growing public transport network.
The tender, published by the Trust for the Development of the Dominican Republic’s Mass Tranpsort System (Fitram), covers engineering design, civil works, and related systems for a 10.5km line with 12 stations. Bids are due by October 23. Fitram will oversee procurement, construction and delivery of the new line.
Alignment
The first phase will run from Charles de Gaulle Avenue at the King Juan Carlos Bridge in Santo Domingo East to the Olympic Centre in the National District, providing interchange with metro lines 1 and 2. According to Fitram, the new line will serve a catchment area of more than 1 million residents and is forecast to carry 306,000 passengers daily, with an initial peak capacity of 12,500 passengers per hour per direction.
The line will initially operate with four-car trains with capacity for 562 passengers, allowing the system to carry up to 22,480 passengers per hour per direction at 90-second headways. Infrastructure is designed accommodate six-car trains in the future, increasing capacity to 34,160 passengers per hour per direction.
Future phases will extend the monorail west to Pintura, where it will connect with cable car Line 3, and to the Duarte Highway, providing an interchange with metro Line 2C at Los Alcarrizos. Together with the city’s metro and cable car lines, the monorail will form a core element of the Santo Domingo Integrated Transport System (SIT-SD), aimed at shifting over one million trips from private vehicles to public transport.
Santiago monorail
Construction of the Dominican Republic’s first monorail project, in Santiago de los Caballeros, is due for completion at the end of this year. The 13km fully automated line, which will have 14 stations, will connect the northwest and southeast areas of the city, with a fleet of 13 four-car Innovia 300 trains manufactured by Alstom in Canada.
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Jamaica
THE Public Procurement Commission (PPC) has joined forces with the National Health Fund (NHF) to train 50 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in performance-driven procurement practices.
Held at the Courtleigh Hotel under the theme “Meet the Buyer Symposium”, the session was designed to give smaller contractors a better grasp of how to navigate Jamaica’s public procurement system — an area that accounts for nearly 30 per cent of the country’s GDP but remains mainly dominated by larger, more established firms.
PPC Executive Director Nadia Morris said the training gave participants practical insight into Jamaica’s Contractor and Consultant Performance Evaluation Programme (CCPEP), which rates suppliers on contract delivery and compliance.
“As Jamaica undergoes significant, positive transformation, we can celebrate the introduction of CCPEP as an important cog in this wheel of development,” Morris said in a press release. “Let us support CCPEP and be committed to utilising it in our public sector operations. This will also set a remarkable precedence for private sector operations to utilise similar accountability strategies.”
Launched in November 2023, the CCPEP framework has already trained 205 procuring entities and onboarded 78 contractors and consultants to the PPC’s Data Visualisation and Business Intelligence Platform. The goal, Morris added, is to create a culture where strong performance directly influences future contract awards, which could open more consistent opportunities for MSMEs.
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Guyana
Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo has announced that the Guyana Government will soon be rolling out an online portal to advertise Government contracts. He believes it will be a move to improve transparency and efficiency to ensure a fairer tendering system.
At a press conference on Thursday, Mr. Jagdeo said the Government is hoping to bring more small and medium size contractors into the pool of contractors and give them an equal opportunity to be part of the tendering process. He said while the Government is expanding the system, it will be looking forward to better quality work from the contractors.
“One of the first manifestations you will see next year is a procurement website that will now advertise contractors around the country. So the current way of doing this, is that you put ads in the newspapers mainly, so in 2024 alone so the cost to the treasury of putting out those ads in the newspapers was nearly $800M that went to the newspaper and once it goes in the newspapers it disappears, people can’t see it the following day,”Mr. Jagdeo said.
On the other hand, he explained that if there is a procurement site in place, once the tender is published it will be available for the duration of the tender period as oppose to a few days like what is currently being done with the Newspapers. This he said, will ensure every person, regardless of location will be able to see the available tendering opportunities.
“We will amend the laws to ensure that happens and we will also be using an online media outfit to carry the ads because they reach more people. So, we are not going to cut out the ads totally but we are going to cut down the cost or give online media outlets that get no share of this ad, although they reach more viewers than the newspapers themselves ,” Mr. Jagdeo stated.
According to the Vice President, the move is in keeping with the President promises in his inaugural address to make the procurement system more transparent and accessible to every Guyanese.
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Jamaica
The House of Representatives, on Tuesday (June 24), approved the Public Procurement (Amendment) Regulations, 2025.
Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Hon. Fayval Williams, said the Regulations are a proactive response to Jamaica’s evolving public procurement landscape.
“They align the country’s procurement practices with international standards, improve confidence among stakeholders, and support Jamaica’s broader goals of sustainable development, institutional integrity, and fiscal prudence,” she said.
“As public procurement remains a cornerstone of national development, these reforms ensure the system is more robust, equitable, and capable of withstanding scrutiny, particularly in high stakes or emergency situations,” the Minister told the House.
Addressing the specific provisions, Mrs. Williams noted that Regulation 2C has been updated to incorporate the term ‘competition threshold’, aligning the Regulations with the terminology introduced in the Public Procurement Amendment Act.
She explained that the competition threshold enables a procuring entity to tailor the level of competition to the specific circumstances of the procurement, including the option to restrict competition based on the estimated contract value.
“It is an improvement and replacement of the term ‘procurement method threshold’. Regulation 7 has been repealed and replaced to take account of the treatment by the primary legislation of procurement in emergency circumstances, and in relation to single-source procurement. It clarifies the onus on procuring entities to satisfy themselves that value for money will be achieved before awarding a procurement contract by single-source procurement,” Mrs. Williams said.
Regulation 8 is amended to reflect the updated ‘competition threshold’ terminology and now outlines procurement methods in accordance with the thresholds detailed in Part 1 of the First Schedule, which addresses works, and Part 2, which pertains to goods and services.
The term ‘value limit threshold’ has also been replaced with ‘competition threshold’ to ensure consistency across the Regulations.
“Regulation 17 is amended to clarify that, for the purposes of assessing a bidder’s eligibility, the determination of its tax compliance is to be made on the date of the deadline for bid submissions and not the date on which the supplier submits the bid.
“The Regulation also recognises that some suppliers have no tax obligations in Jamaica or elsewhere. In those cases, once verified by Tax Administration Jamaica (TAJ), tax compliance requirements will not apply to those bidders,” Mrs. Williams stated.
Regulation 33, which addresses advance payment and security, has been repealed and replaced with clearer provisions detailing the procedures for submitting advance payment requests and the conditions under which such can be made.
Additionally, Regulation 33 now stipulates that if a contractor defaults on the completion of a procurement contract, the procuring entity reserves the right to forfeit the advance payment security in accordance with the terms outlined in the security arrangement.
“Regulation 39 is also amended to allow for shorter timeframes for bid notifications, upon request, in writing to the Public Procurement Commission. This now allows procuring entities to have greater flexibility in their bid advertisement timeline prior to that actual solicitation process, and once it is deemed necessary or properly justified,” Mrs. Williams stated.
The Minister also informed the House that the First Schedule has been repealed and replaced, and now outlines the levels of competition and corresponding procurement methods applicable to works, goods, and services.
“Take for instance, in the procurement of contracts for works, where open international level of competition may be deployed for the procurement methods, the following methods may be used: international competitive bidding, national competitive bidding, requests for proposals with consecutive negotiation, and requests for proposals without negotiation,” she said.
“Open national level of competition can be done using national competitive bidding, requests for proposals with consecutive negotiation, and the requests for proposals without negotiation procurement methods. Additionally, restricted levels of competition for works can be done through restrictive bidding with a minimum of three selected suppliers,” Mrs. Williams further stated.
She noted that these measures are expected to enhance decision-making accuracy and transactional efficiency, while upholding the principles of fair competition.
Meanwhile, Minister Williams said the Second Schedule of the Regulations has been revised to define procurement contract approval limits, now categorised into three tiers with updated contract values.
She explained that Tier 1 contracts, valued $60 million or less, require the approval of the head of the procuring entity.
Tier 2, valued at more than $60 million and up to $100 million, require the approval of both the head of the procuring entity and the Public Procurement Commission.
Tier 3 contracts, valued more than $100 million, require the approval of the head of the procuring entity, the Public Procurement Commission, and the Cabinet.
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