Guyana
HAILED as the largest public infrastructure project undertaken in Guyana, the government, on Wednesday, signed a US$260 million contract for the construction of the new Demerara River Bridge at the Nandy Park, East Bank Demerara (EBD) site where the eastern end of the bridge will land.
Deodat Indar, Minister within the Ministry of Public Works, told those gathered for the occasion that, for many years, there were promises of a new Harbour Bridge as the current one has surpassed its lifespan.
He noted that while the current Demerara Harbour Bridge is being managed and maintained to ensure that the very necessary link between Regions 3 (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara) and 4 (Demerara-Mahaica) is present, the government has made a promise to prioritise the construction of a new bridge.
“His Excellency, the President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, Dr Irfaan Ali has, today, made that promise in the manifesto a reality, with this historic signing of the agreement to construct a New Demerara Harbour Bridge,” Minister Indar proclaimed.
The construction cost of US$260 million, he added, was the negotiated amount that came following a process of competitive bidding and rigorous evaluation. A joint venture of Chinese companies, led by China Railway Construction Corporation, emerged successful in the procurement process.
The new bridge, according to Minister Indar, is expected to be 2.65 kilometres with the width of the driving surface being around 23.6 meters, with two carriageways and four lanes.
The bridge is a hybrid design with the high span or navigation span having a cable stay design, Minister Indar noted. The vertical height of the fixed bridge is said to be constructed at some 50 meters from the mean highest watermark which means that large size vessels would be able to pass freely under the bridge.
The bridge, which is said to have a design lifespan of 100 years, is expected to also have cycling lanes, among other features.
Transforming Guyana
Delivering feature remarks at the event was Senior Minister with responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh, who said the ceremony may be simple and devoid of pomp, but that history was being witnessed.
“We are witnessing history today! And, not history in the sense of a one-off isolated project, but history in the sense of a major transformative project that is part of a much larger, comprehensive plan to transforming Guyana,” the minister for finance said.
For Dr Singh, a modern Guyana is well underway with today’s generation holding a seat of privilege to witness and be active participants in the transformation.
Minister Singh explained there are other contracts signed for several transformative projects. The US$190 million contract for the Linden to Mabura Hill Road, part of the first phase to connect Linden to Lethem and further connect Guyana to Brazil, was one such project mentioned.
He added that it was just weeks ago that contracts were also signed for the construction of 32 concrete bridges along the alignment of the remainder of the road from Kurupukari to Lethem.
Singh said: “Today’s signing also comes at a time when we are about to launch the procurement process for a new road from the alignment of this bridge on the West Demerara side to Crane, and [also] when we are at an advanced stage of designing a new highway from Schoonard on the West Bank of Demerara to Parika on the Essequibo River.”
Years in the Making
Meanwhile, Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill, echoed similar sentiments as Dr Singh, mentioning that while history was in the making, it had been a long and challenging road to get to this point.
He noted that the signing was the culmination of almost ten years of planning dating back to March 2013 when former Minister of Public Works, Robeson Benn, commissioned a pre-feasibility study to examine the pertinence of the construction of a new fixed bridge across the Demerara River.
In 2017, that Ministry also commissioned feasibility studies examining eight possible locations, including the current Nandy Park to La Grange alignment, for the construction of the new bridge.
“We are here to sign the largest contract for a transport infrastructure project ever financed by the Government of Guyana, and I think we need to celebrate this,” Minister Edghill said.
From 2013 to 2022, the average daily traffic across the demerara river, he noted, increased from approximately 13,781 vehicles to some 22,000 vehicles in both directions.
While the increased traffic has caused congestion and frustration for stranded commuters, the project is expected to ease those woes.
Minister Edghill told those gathered that it was President, Dr Irfaan Ali who placed great importance on and prioritised the project since entering office on August 2, 2020.
He said that just a few weeks after entering office, President Ali walked the alignment to ensure that the government had a full observation and understanding of the project.
“We did not get here by chance; a lot of work was done. Less than a week after the President walked this alignment with a team that included myself (sic) and my colleague minister Indar, we set up a high-level technical working group comprising of mostly public sector stakeholders,” Edghill explained.
The Minister said that the working group aimed to remove all barriers and pave the way for the construction of the bridge at the site.
The project initially went out to public tender and attracted some 14 bidders who were pre-qualified for the construction of the bridge. Eventually, nine firms were pre-qualified and invited to submit proposals. Following several months of engagement, five of the prequalified bidders submitted proposals on October 21, 2021.
“The signing of this contract today is truly monumental and will lead to construction activities never before witnessed in our urban space,” the Minister noted further.
He went on to underscore that government expects the project to be delivered to the people of Guyana within the next two years.
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Guyana
CONSTRUCTION for the US$700-million Amaila Falls Hydropower station (AFHP) could possibly go back to tender, as the current executing company, China Railway Group Limited (CRGL), is having difficulties honouring its commitment to the Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) contract that it signed.
The government maintains that it is holding the company to the BOOT bid they submitted. If an amicable arrangement cannot be met, the government is willing to retender the project.
This is according to Vice-President (VP) Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, who gave an update on the situation at a press conference on Monday at the Office of the President.
The Vice-President explained that the company has requested to change the BOOT contract’s arrangement to an Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) contract.
“We have been in discussion since November last year. The negotiations are very difficult. As of April 2022, they are having a hard time doing the BOOT contract and want EPC financing. We’re still trying to get them to meet the commitment that they bid for [but] for the last six months we have been struggling to reach the conclusion; we will have to give a deadline [on negotiations],” Dr Jagdeo related.
Under an EPC, CRGL would be responsible for all the engineering, procurement, and construction activities and deliver the completed project to the government within a predefined time and cost. However, that would require the government to source the financing, whereas under the BOOT model the project is financed by the contractor.
Dr Jagdeo affirmed, however, that notwithstanding the delay, the government would still be moving forward with the project, albeit with a pushing back of the timeline.
“If we can’t get it done under the BOOT, we will not be able to conclude the EPC finance model. We are stuck with the possibility of having to retender. That might be a bit of a setback but on the other hand, we are moving full steam ahead [with doing the project],” Dr Jagdeo said.
The AFHP project had been expected to commence construction in 2022 and be completed in 2025, and when completed, add 165 megawatts (MW) of energy to the national grid.
Last year, the Ministry of Finance had reported that Cabinet had granted its ‘no-objection’ for the Office of the Prime Minister to engage the CRGL to construct the AFHP, based on the BOOT model.
Four companies submitted proposals, and CRGL was identified as the most’ capable partner’ by the Evaluation Committee, following a rigorous evaluation process,
Through the project, the company will supply electricity to Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Inc. at a cost not exceeding US$0.07737 per KWH, and provide the entire equity required by the project and undertake all the associated risks with the project.
This follows the publication of a request for proposals by the government in various national newspapers from July to August, 2021.
The AFHP was first identified in 1976 by the Canadian company “Monenco’ during an extensive survey of hydroelectric power potential in Guyana. Various studies have since justified and strongly supported the construction of the AFHP.
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Barbados
Co-coordinator of the National Vaccination Programme, Major David Clarke today revealed that plans were at an advanced stage to procure the vaccines.
“I can also say that we have been pursuing the vaccines for the five to 11s and so we are hoping to get some of those vaccines and once we get those vaccines we will also be rolling out the programme for the five to 11.
“We are presently working on it. It is at the paperwork stage so once the paperwork is completed and we are satisfied that what we are getting is exactly what we want then you’ll hear it, but not too much longer,” Major Clarke said this afternoon during a Zoom meeting hosted by the Rotary Club of Barbados.
Additionally, he said 56.7 per cent of children aged 12 to 18 have been vaccinated.
He however, admitted that due to examinations vaccinations for that age group had been temporarily suspended to avoid any impact on the performance of those students.
Major Clarke said while there was a lull in the number of persons coming forward to be vaccinated, boosters were still popular.
He said around 71 per cent of the eligible population or 57 per cent of the overall population had so far been vaccinated.
Major Clarke said that figure could be even higher as “quite a number” of Barbadians had been vaccinated overseas. He said those persons were not counted in the local numbers.
“We’ve done just over 50, 000 booster shots and probably around 2000 people who have had their second booster. The booster shots at present seem to be the most number of people coming into the system but we are still getting one or two first doses and that’s going very slowly,” he pointed out.
Major Clarke said AstraZeneca and Pfizer had been the two most popular vaccines in Barbados.
He said the uptake for Sinopharm was “very small” with only 5000 doses being administered. He said that particular vaccine was not recognized by either the United States or Canada. Similarly, only 600 people had opted to take the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.
He said some countries also required that visitors be up to date with their booster shots.
“There are some countries that if your vaccine is older than six months they ask you to get another booster, so if you go to a restaurant in Italy at present and your vaccine is older than six months they don’t want to accept you to the restaurant. So what they are saying is you really need to have a booster every six months,” he explained.
Major Clarke said they were currently awaiting permission to send booster certificates with a QR code.
He said because of the large numbers of people who had contracted COVID-19 he believed the herd immunity factor “has been a little better” than people realize.
He said the National Vaccination Programme was scheduled to end this year at which time it would be handed over to public health and the facilities would be closed.
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Guyana
We are on a fast track to climate disaster. Major cities under water. Unprecedented heat waves. Terrifying storms. Widespread water shortages. The extinction of a million species of plants and animals.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres
According to the World Meteorological Organisation, there is now a 50-50 chance that the global average temperatures will exceed 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels within the next five years, compared with last year when they were assessed at 40 percent. Scientists have long warned that exceeding the 1.5° Celsius threshold set by the 2015 Paris Accord on Climate Change will result in ‘in a cascade of climate catastrophes, including dramatic sea level rise, prolonged drought, crop failures, increased wildfires, more damaging tropical cyclones, unprecedented flash flooding and deadly heat waves’. Oceans will continue to become warmer and more acidic, and sea ice and glaciers will continue to melt. (https://www.dw.com/en/global-warming-world-has-50-50-chance-of-hitting-15c-mark-soon/a-61743456). In Australia, 91 percent of the Great Barrier Reef surveyed recently exhibits some form of bleaching. (https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/11/australia/australia-great-barrier-reef-bleaching-climate-intl-hnk/index.html#:~:text=The%20report%20surveyed%20a%20total,multiple%20reefs%20in%20all%20regions).
Parts of Pakistan and north-west India are experiencing temperatures of more than 50° Celsius; while in the city of Durban in South Africa there was severe flooding due to intense rainfall that caused the death of 435 people. According to a recent study, such an occurrence can now be expected to happen in various parts of South Africa every 20 years, instead of 40 years, as a result of human induced greenhouse gas emissions. (https://ca.yahoo.com/finance/news/global-warming-made-africas-recent-110000082.html).
Our last two articles dealt with certain breaches in the Fiscal Management and Accountability (FMA) Act over the years, especially the acceleration of expenditure in the last quarter of the fiscal year to exhaust budgetary allocations; and the drawing of cheques close to year-end although value or full value was not received at the time. We referred to the 57 contracts that a Cabinet sub-committee had approved on 30 December 2019 as well as the statement by a senior government official that the funds to be used to execute the contracts were provided for under the 2019 Estimates. While this may be true, the Act specifically requires all unspent balances at the end of each fiscal year to be refunded to the Consolidated Fund; and the expenditure of all roll-over projects has to be re-budgeted for in the next fiscal year. In all probability, most of the 14,137 cheques valued at $16.0 billion drawn on 31 December 2019 were in relation to these contracts. We indicated that if a full and comprehensive investigation of these contracts is carried out, it would be most revealing as to the extent of the breaches in the FMA Act, the Procurement Act and the Stores Regulations, and whether full value was received in relation to outputs, outcomes and impacts.
The other issue raised last week was the incurrence expenditure during the period January-August 2020 in the absence of an approved budget. Article 218 of the Constitution specifically prohibits expenditure of public moneys unless authorized by an Appropriation Act, as reinforced by Section 16 of the FMA Act. Article 220, however, does allow the Minister to authorize withdrawals from the Consolidated Fund for the first four months to meet the cost of essential services, pending the approval of the Estimates. There is no provision for access to the Fund beyond this period. It was not until September, following the change in government, that the Estimates for 2020 were approved. Therefore, all withdrawals from the Consolidated Fund to meet expenditure during the period May-August 2020 would have been devoid of constitutional/legislative authority.
In 2014, the National Assembly had reduced the Estimates by $36.747 billion based on a ruling of the Chief Justice. The then Administration went ahead in defiance of the wishes of the Assembly and restored parts of the Estimates. As a result, expenditure totalling $4.544 billion was incurred for the first half of 2014 without parliamentary approval. When the related Financial Paper was presented to the Assembly for covering approval of the expenditure, the Assembly declined to do so, and a motion for a vote of no confidence in the Government was tabled. In February 2015, the Chief Justice ruled that the Administration’s action violated the Constitution.
The above two incidents raise the important question of whether we should not reintroduce the comptrollership function as part of the duties of the Auditor General in order to provide independent assurance that all releases of funds from the Consolidated Fund are supported by appropriations authorized by Parliament and other constitutional/legislative means. In Jamaica, for example, the Auditor General is required to authenticate all warrants for the issues of moneys from the Consolidated Fund. The same applies to UK’s Comptroller and Auditor General. When we were a British colony, the comptrollership function was vested in the Director of Audit. Regrettably, after Independence, this important safeguard was dispensed with.
Procurement of goods/services
and the execution of works
The Procurement Act 2003 regulates the procurement of goods, services and the execution of works in order to promote competition among suppliers and contractors as well as fairness and transparency in the procurement process. The Act, which replaced the Tender Board Regulations, outlines the procedures to be followed in relation to: (i) open tendering; (ii) restricted tendering; (iii) requests for quotations; (iv) single source procurement; and (v) procurement through community participation. Each of these forms of procurement has its own authority limit and level, with the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) at the apex. However, all proposed contracts in excess of G$15 million require “no objection” from the Cabinet whose involvement was to have been progressively phased out upon the establishment of the Public Procurement Commission (PPC). However, action is yet to be taken in this regard.
The PPC was established by the constitutional amendment of 2001 to, among others, monitor and review the functioning of all procurement systems to ensure that they are in accordance with law and such policy guidelines as may be determined by the Assembly. It, however, took 15 years for the first Commissioners to be appointed. The Commission’s life ended in October 2019 but two of the five members were granted a one-year extension. Although new Commissioners have since been identified, the Assembly is yet to approve of their appointments.
Over the years, numerous procurement breaches occurred at various Ministries/ Department/Regions, with little or no evidence of any action taken against the concerned officials. Shown below are some of the breaches, as gleaned from the executive summaries of the Auditor General’s reports.
1995: Significant breaches in the Tender Board Regulations were observed, especially at the Guyana Defence Force, Ministry of Health, and Regions 3, 5, and 9. As a result, it could not be satisfactorily determined whether full value was obtained for the goods/services procured and works executed. The report strongly recommended that appropriate sanctions be taken against officers who were involved in a deliberate manipulation of the Regulations.
The Central Tender Board (CTB), the predecessor of the NPTAB, was not functioning in a manner so as to facilitate an independent review. The record-keeping and filing were completely neglected and, in particular, the minutes of the various meetings held to adjudicate on the award of major contracts were not available. Recommendations were made for a complete re-organisation of the operations of the CTB, especially as regards its composition so as to enable an appropriate balance between private sector/civil society representation and that of the public sector to be achieved, with the chairperson coming from the former.
Section 16 of the Procurement Act 2003 now provides for the appointment of members of the NPTAB – not more than five persons from the Public Service; and not more than three persons from the private sector after consultation with their representative organizations. The chairperson must be a full-time member. The current Board comprises seven members, with the chairperson being a senior official of the Ministry of Finance responsible for the monitoring of the execution of the Government’s infrastructure development projects. In September 2020, the then Minister responsible for Finance had indicated that the chairperson’s appointment would be a temporary one. Since then, no action was taken to regularize this obviously undesirable situation.
2001: Significant breaches in the Tender Board Regulations at the Guyana Defence Force were again drawn to attention. These included the absence of a system of competitive bidding and numerous instances of contract-splitting to avoid adjudication by Departmental Tender Board and/or the CTB. The former’s involvement appeared to be mere cosmetic to facilitate payments by the Sub-Treasury. Similar breaches occurred at the Supreme Court of Judicature, especially contract-splitting. In relation to the Ministries of Agriculture, Public Works & Communications, and Home Affairs, the basis of the award of several contracts adjudicated by the CTB could not be determined because of the unavailability of the related files.
2010: Amounts totalling $1.252 billion were paid to New GPC for the procurement of drugs and medical supplies based on the sole sourcing method approved by the NPTAB instead of open tender. Similar observations were made in relation to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation and the Ministry of Education Book Distribution Unit.
2017: In Regions 5 and 6, several contracts were awarded using restricted tender approach instead of open tender; while in Region 2, some contracts were incorrectly awarded using the 3-quote procurement method.
2018: In Regions 1, 5, 8, 9 and 10, several contracts were awarded using the restricted tender approach instead of open tender. Some contracts were also incorrectly awarded using the 3-quote method.
2019: In Regions 1, 2, and 6, and seven Ministries/Departments, contracts were awarded using the single source and restricted tendering methods instead of open tender.
Stores Regulations
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Trinidad and Tobago
Chester Sambrano
Caroni Central MP Arnold Ram has claimed that the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) is paying over $7 million a year to rent scaffolding for the Edinburgh Towers project in Chaguanas although work there has stalled.
However, this has been denied by Housing and Urban Development Minister Camille Robinson-Regis.
In April 2021, then Minister of Housing Penelope Beckles promised the project would be completed by June of this year.
But during a visit to the La Clave Street location on Tuesday, MP Ram lamented the state of the work and what he called wasted money on scaffolding.
“The scaffolding has been erected around and hugging this building in the periphery for the last two years. Our information is this is costing taxpayers $22,000 per day. When you convert that, it is a yearly figure of $7.9 million being wasted,” Ram said.
In a response to Guardian Media, Robinson-Regis accused the United National Congress of misleading the public.
“The scaffolding at the Edinburgh Towers is owned by the HDC, so the question of rental does not arise. MP Ram is therefore totally incorrect and spewing misinformation,” she explained.
Ram also raised questions over a completion date for the project.
“We are almost in June 2022 and not a nail has been hammered into any wall…not a finger has been lifted in the construction of these towers.”
He said he has gotten several calls from residents asking when the towers will be completed.
“Tell us when it is going to start, when it is going to complete, what is the total cost.”
Robinson-Regis answered, “The HDC has a carefully thought out procurement process which will result in the successful completion of the Edinburgh Towers and make 140 affordable units available to eligible citizens of Trinidad and Tobago. We have determined that the completion date for Tower One is December 2022 and for Tower Two, May 2023. The intention is to utilise several small contractors chosen after the tender process which is now in train.”
Ram also questioned if the HDC has gotten the design approvals and all the statutory approvals relating to the project.
However, in April last year, HDC chairman Noel Garcia said after an analysis, engineers gave the HDC clearance to proceed and all other approvals were received.
When the project stalled in 2011, it was due to design flaws and missing approvals from the T&T Electricity Commission, Water and Sewerage Authority, T&T Fire Service and the Town and Country Planning Division.
Construction of the towers started in March 2005 and was budgeted at $57 million initially but it incurred $87.7 million in variations.
In 2015, then Housing and Urban Development Minister Dr Roodal Moonilal estimated that it would cost about $200 million to redesign and complete the construction of the two abandoned apartment towers.
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