Guyana
With the Ministry of Health recording new COVID-19 infections daily, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony says the Government of Guyana is still relying on the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) to procure paxlovid tablets to treat the disease.
Dr Anthony was giving his daily COVID-19 update when he revealed that Guyana is relying on UNICEF to procure the tablets.
“We have been working with UNICEF. They have a global agreement with Pfizer and through that agreement we were hoping to get paxlovid at a much discounted rate.”
“So far, I don’t think UNICEF has been able to source any of the paxlovid but we remain optimistic,” Dr Anthony said.
Developed by Pfizer, Paxlovid is an oral antiviral medication that was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in December of 2021 and is recommended to be given to persons as soon as they are diagnosed with COVID-19 and within five days of them developing symptoms of the disease.
It starts combating the COVID-19 virus once it is taken.
The average cost for a treatment course is US$530. However, Guyana will get a discount. The Minister said that it is difficult to source the medication, hence, UNICEF through its partnership with Pfizer will be able to get the tablets.
Guyana has 100 active COVID-19 cases with some 19 being recorded in over the period of 24 hrs. 206 tests were conducted, the Minister said.
In the meantime, Guyana has started using a COVID-19 treatment drug, baricitinib to help treat some hospitalised patients who were experiencing the more severe symptoms of COVID-19.
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Jamaica
Having addressed the bottleneck issue within the public procurement process, the Government is now focusing on eliminating the incidence of duplications, among other impediments.
This was disclosed by Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Dr. the Hon. Nigel Clarke, while speaking during Wednesday’s (November 30) handover ceremony for 50 new garbage trucks and 10 motorcycles acquired for the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), at National Heroes Park in Kingston.
Dr. Clarke pointed out that consequent on duplications and other issues within the public procurement regime, “there are certain steps that might need to change, certain thresholds that might need to be adjusted, certain steps that need to be removed”.
“We definitely have to make changes in our procurement system to make it more efficient,” he said.
The Minister pointed out that the change has started with the Public Procurement Commission (PPC).
“They were recently certified as ISO:9000, and we measure the time it takes when items get to the PPC and when they leave the PPC,” he informed.
Dr. Clarke advised that “that’s all transparently documented”, adding “I am proud of the fact that, as far as the PPC is concerned, the time for items to remain with them is down to two weeks, when it used to be eight weeks several years ago”.
He assured that the Government will continue to look at removing impediments within the public procurement process.
Established on April 1, 2019, in accordance with the Public Procurement Act, 2015, the PPC is the organisation that examines and gives oversight to Jamaica’s public procurement processes.
Public Procurement, also known as ‘public sector procurement’ or ‘government procurement’, is the process of acquiring goods, services and works, using State funds in an economical and effective manner.
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Trinidad and Tobago
After seven years of being fed one excuse after another, the public should now face the awful prospect that the Rowley administration has no intention of bringing the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property Act into effect any time soon, not even in the gutted form to which it had reduced the act two years ago.
One would have thought that having substantially watered down the law by removing critical financial transactions from the remit of the procurement regulator, the Government would be happy to have pressed on to the proclamation of the weakened law if only to claim bragging rights for having implemented anti-corruption legislation. However, having succeeded in stripping the law of the big-ticket items of government-to-government contracts, agreements with international financial institutions and a range of contracted services—including legal services, debt-financing services for the national budget, accounting and auditing services, medical emergency or other scheduled medical services, and virtually any other service the Minister of Finance may one day decide to remove—the Government continues to peddle backwards on this issue.
The excuse for the latest delay was provided by the Judiciary in response to a letter from Attorney General Reginald Armour asking about its state of readiness to handle matters arising out of the Procurement Act. Lo and behold, 25 years after the Panday administration opened up a public discussion about procurement legislation, 17 years after the Manning administration produced a white paper on the subject in 2005, and eight years after the Kamla Persad-Bissessar administration piloted the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property Bill and eventually secured Parliament’s approval on December 16, 2012, the Judiciary was finally prepared to submit its views on the law. How fortuitous that the AG asked! What if he hadn’t?
In a 29-page response, the Judiciary detailed its concerns, essentially saying that no, it did not have the resources to handle what could become a deluge of matters, revealing in the process an understandable touch of envy that the Office of the Procurement Regulator was afforded greater administrative independence in resourcing itself.
On Friday, the Judiciary’s position was seized upon by Government MPs Terrence Deyalsingh and Keith Scotland when Procurement Regulator Moonilal Lalchan appeared before Parliament’s Joint Select Committee on Finance and Legal Affairs, of which both are members. Their comments echoed the position of AG Armour, indicating where the Government is heading with respect to the legislation: “I don’t think we should be rushing into full operationalisation without regard to the views of the Judiciary,” declared Deyalsingh.
In July, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley had expressed disappointment about the delay, saying he was anxious to have the law come into effect, and promising the Government would move with “reasonable haste” to have it proclaimed as soon as the AG was able to address the “pitfalls” identified by the Judiciary.
Anyone expecting the PM’s comment to be followed by a time-table for action from the AG was doomed to disappointment. Four months later, he has released no plan of action, nor presented a progress report of any kind. Perhaps this matter, too, has slipped his mind.
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Guyana
The Guyana Cabinet on Thursday gave the go-ahead for the construction of a 300-megawatt natural gas power plant that is expected to cut electricity bills in half.
President Dr. Irfaan Ali announced in a Facebook live video that CH4/Lindsayca, which was one of the five entities that submitted bids in September, was given government’s nod.
He said negotiations will now start with the expectation that a contract will be executed before the end of November.
“The Government of Guyana, via Cabinet, today issued its no-objection to the ranking of CH4/Lindsayca as the number one ranked group to build a 300 MW combined cycle power plant and natural gas liquids (NGL) Plant at Wales, West Coast Demerara (WCD), under an Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) Contract,” he said, adding that Power China was ranked number two by an evaluation team.
“Cabinet’s no-objection will now allow negotiations to proceed to conclude an EPC contract. Power China . . . may be engaged if negotiations fail to conclude a contract with Lindsayca by the end of November.”
President Ali said the project is expected to deliver power at less than half the current costs. Project generation costs, taking account of payment for the pipeline, operations and maintenance, and capital cost recovery, will total less than five US cents per kilowatt hour, he said.
“This is a significant movement forward in Guyana – not only achieving energy security, but us achieving an important benchmark that is a reduction in our energy costs so that our manufacturing and industrial development and expansion can take place and so that the ordinary families and the ordinary people can feel a substantial reduction in the cost of electricity in their pockets and in their household.
“Just for reference, a family at the end of this project that now pays GY$20,000 per month in light bill or electricity costs will see that costs coming down to GY$10,000,” he said.
Earlier this year, nine firms were publicly pre-qualified to bid on the EPC contract. At the closing date of September 13, five bids were received.
President Ali said the bids were evaluated for technical compliance and ranking by Stantec and Worley, two global engineering firms with expertise in oil and gas. Based on the reports of these international firms, an evaluation team of three people, including a representative of Exxon, was appointed.
“The evaluation team performed the evaluation in accordance with the technical and economic criteria set out in the RFP. On the basis of the bids submitted and clarifications received, the Evaluation Team unanimously ranked CH4/Lindsayca as number one, and Power China as number two,” Ali explained.
He said key considerations in the evaluation took account of the expected date of delivery of the 300 MW power plant by December 2024. Both top-ranked companies confirmed that deadline.
The EPC contract will be supervised by a global supervision firm. The selected supervision firm is Engineers India Limited.
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Jamaica
The Auditor General’s Department (AuGD) says the ministries of health and wellness (MoHW) and labour and social security displayed good practices in the face of enormous pressure during the novel coronavirus pandemic, but failed in some areas of procurement and records management, with the MoHW paying out hundreds of millions, without a paper trail.
In a COVID-19 expenditure audit compliance audit compendium report on the ministries tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis stressed that it was important to create a balance between effective response and maintaining good procurement and record-keeping practices “since emergency spending is believed to be susceptible to misuse and corruption”.
Among the issues pinpointed was a lack of transparency in payments for COVID-19 quarantine facilities, in which $337 million was paid to seven hotels and guesthouses for providing quarantine accommodations, but the ministry only provided evidence of a formal contract with one.
“The six service providers, without a formal contract, were paid a total of $293 million. In the absence of formal terms and conditions, MoHW was exposed to unbudgeted liability claims and varying payment arrangements, in a context where one service provider unexpectedly asked MoHW to pay the facility’s electricity bill and 90 per cent of water charges,” Monroe Ellis outlined.
Monroe Ellis said the ministry advised that as part of the Cabinet-approved managed controlled re-entry programme to govern to the country’s opening of its borders, it was directed to establish arrangements with private entities such as hotels and guest houses for the mandatory quarantine of people entering the country, in an extremely short timeframe which did not allow for negotiation of formal contracts.
The report noted that the MoHW also paid out $124 million to eight suppliers for infrastructural works done as part of response activities, between January and June 2020, without contracts in place.
The Government auditors also raised concerns about the MoHW’s transfer of $174 million to the Ministry of Local Government, the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), and a non-government organisation, without the requisite approval of the finance ministry. “Given that MoHW indicated that it did not obtain any authorisation to execute the transfer, the action raises a greater concern over the use of funds allocated for the COVID-19 pandemic,” the auditor general said.
“We also noted that the MoHW did not report to the National Contracts Commission (NCC) the justification for engaging the contractors using the direct contracting methodology,” the auditor general advised.
The ministry’s explanation is that its acceptance of contractors’ letters of quotation forms a binding contract between the two parties, and that the exigencies of the pandemic required these works to be done at short notice, within short timeframes, which didn’t allow for formal contracts, as is the normal practice. The auditor general advised that subsequent to her investigations, the health ministry reported all emergency contracts to the NCC.
At the same time, the ministry spent $189.21 million to purchase fixed assets, which it said was to support its COVID-19 response efforts, but Monroe Ellis said her department’s review of a sample of fixed assets purchased totalling $55 million found that the ministry spent $2 million on the purchase of 45 televisions and 15 tablets, but did not indicate on the purchase records the reasons for acquiring these devices. Consequently, the auditors said they were not able to determine how these items related to the COVID-19 response.
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