{"id":26877,"date":"2023-03-16T23:03:54","date_gmt":"2023-03-17T04:03:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/projectcalls.com\/dev?p=26877"},"modified":"2023-03-16T19:24:28","modified_gmt":"2023-03-17T00:24:28","slug":"policing-56-8b-worth-of-contracts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/policing-56-8b-worth-of-contracts\/","title":{"rendered":"Policing $56.8b worth of contracts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guyana<\/p>\n

On Friday, the Ministry of Housing and Water signed a mind-boggling $56.8b worth of infrastructural development works with contractors across the country. Housing is a lynchpin of the government\u2019s manifesto and the Ali administration is clearly losing no time in advancing its plans for 50,000 house lots at the end of the five-year term replete with infrastructure and other major projects such as Silica City on the Linden\/ Soesdyke Highway and transforming Palmyra on the Corentyne.<\/p>\n

Just for context, that one session of the signing of contracts at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre is equivalent to\u00a0 7.2% of the entire budget presented in January this year and just for comparison purposes and to demonstrate the vast annual expansion of the budget it represents 40% of the 2010 figure.<\/p>\n

True to form, the contract signings came with the perfunctory warning from the Minister of Housing and Water Collin Croal about delays not being tolerated and the need to fulfil the commitment made by the government to citizens.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis government has made commitments to the people of Guyana and to applicants who are waiting for their lots. So, therefore, you have to ensure you meet your timelines,\u201d Mr Croal exhorted.<\/p>\n

Helpfully, he also advised that he was available if problems arose. \u201cShould you be confronted with issues and you are not seeing them addressed, my office is open to resolve issues\u2026 I don\u2019t have an open door policy when you are tendering but from today you are my business\u2026 because we have a mandate to deliver and I have an open door policy in that regard,\u201d Mr Croal told the contractors.<\/p>\n

Adverting to the manifesto commitments made by the PPP\/C the minister said: \u201cThis year we have strategised even more on how to ensure we meet our mandate\u2026 Every day the projects team\u2019s mandate is increasing and the volume is also increasing\u201d.<\/p>\n

Notwithstanding the injustice of the deformed deal with ExxonMobil and its partners, the oil being extracted from beneath the Atlantic seabed has turbocharged government spending to stratospheric levels. The change envisaged could be transformative, however, great care must be taken to ensure that money is not wasted on poor work, stolen or frittered away. Evidence of this has already appeared under this government on relatively small projects. There has been little guidance from the ministries of Housing and Water and Public Works \u2013 under which the bulk of the expenditure is coming \u2013 on\u00a0 what steps are being taken to ensure value for money, quality work and scrupulous adherence to plans and timelines.<\/p>\n

Delays are routine on many infrastructural projects, a function of the global supply chain problems, a shortage of human resources and the difficulty in sourcing materials. With the majority of these contracts requiring sand, stone and cement at the same time along with skilled labourers it isn\u2019t difficult to conceive of a perfect storm brewing and gridlock developing. One contractor alone has secured $1.6b worth of infrastructure work in two tranches for Palmyra. Can this contractor deliver simultaneously on both? When the awards were being made were the Evaluation Committees of the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) aware of the capacities of these contractors and that they may be securing multiple contracts?<\/p>\n

It would be in the best interest of the people and the government for Messrs Croal and Edghill to provide matrices by which all of these major works can be evaluated contemporaneously and kept on track. The occasional announced or unannounced visit by the minister or other ministry officials won\u2019t cut it. There needs to be structured and consistent evaluation of these projects and a feedback mechanism involving the public and all stakeholders.<\/p>\n

Good governance here needs a competent inspectorate \u2013 separated from ministry influence \u2013 to meticulously examine the works being done not only for compliance with timelines but, more importantly, for a high standard of work not requiring remediation soon after or unjustified cost overruns.<\/p>\n

In each locality where projects are being undertaken, the schedule of works with timelines should be me made available to community leaders and citizens by the procuring agencies. Even though not functioning properly, the local government system can still provide an early warning for what might be going wrong. Regional councils, municipalities and neighbourhood democratic councils (NDCs) should be provided with training by the government, the Office of the Auditor General and the NPTAB on what to look for in these projects and to interface with both the contractor and the consultants.<\/p>\n

Over the years, there have been stark failures by consultants on large projects like these. They simply do not diligently undertake their tasks. They, too, need to be held accountable. Whether performance bonds have been lodged and are accessed if contractors do not deliver is another area where there have been notable failures. The public awaits full accounting for the expenditures on the contract which was terminated by Minister Edghill as no work had been done despite mobilisation monies paid out and what happens with the contract for the Parika Market which was incinerated when sparks from the contractor\u2019s workers ignited inflammable material.<\/p>\n

As the overarching arbiter of the expenditure of public funds, one wants to see a far greater role for the Office of the Auditor General (OAG). It is invested with enormous constitutional powers to preserve the public coin of which its examination of the annual accounts is but one despite being the best known. Special audits \u2013 staff permitting \u2013 are a vital tool at its disposal which should enable it to examine the use of public monies\u00a0 in as close to real time as possible for a selection of these big ticket items.<\/p>\n

more<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

image: Business-Office-Contract<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guyana On Friday, the Ministry of Housing and Water signed a mind-boggling $56.8b worth of infrastructural development works with contractors across the country. Housing is a lynchpin of the government\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1091,"featured_media":4992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[250],"tags":[110,173,116,125],"class_list":["post-26877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-articles","tag-contracting","tag-contracts","tag-guyana","tag-public-procurement"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Business-Office-Contract-Agreement-Deal-rawpixel-Pixabay.jpg?fit=1024%2C682&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6u9Qa-6Zv","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":28982,"url":"https:\/\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/contracts-signed-for-some-53m-in-infrastructural-development-in-region-two\/","url_meta":{"origin":26877,"position":0},"title":"Contracts signed for some $53M in infrastructural development in Region Two","author":"Mayra Bonilla Lopez","date":"July 20, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Guyana Residents of several Region Two communities can expect to see significant infrastructural following the signing of three contracts on Friday, totalling approximately $53.4 million. 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Deodat Indar, Minister\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Articles"","block_context":{"text":"Articles","link":"https:\/\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/category\/articles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/pexels-karolina-grabowska-4968573-scaled-e1655473594837.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/pexels-karolina-grabowska-4968573-scaled-e1655473594837.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/pexels-karolina-grabowska-4968573-scaled-e1655473594837.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/pexels-karolina-grabowska-4968573-scaled-e1655473594837.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1091"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26877"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26906,"href":"https:\/\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26877\/revisions\/26906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}