{"id":37938,"date":"2025-01-09T23:54:44","date_gmt":"2025-01-10T04:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/projectcalls.com\/dev?p=37938"},"modified":"2025-01-09T18:23:01","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T23:23:01","slug":"nptab-may-be-guilty-of-dereliction-of-duty-in-police-procurement-case-goolsarran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/nptab-may-be-guilty-of-dereliction-of-duty-in-police-procurement-case-goolsarran\/","title":{"rendered":"NPTAB may be guilty of dereliction of duty in police procurement case \u2013 Goolsarran"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guyana<\/p>\n

Former auditor general Anand Goolsarran has flayed the National Pro-curement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) over its apparent role in what could be a conflict-of-interest situation now that investigations into allegations of financial impropriety against Deputy Commis-sioner (ag) of Police Calvin Brutus have also placed a company allegedly owned by his wife under scrutiny.<\/p>\n

Not naming Brutus, Goolsarran wrote in his weekly \u2018Accountability Watch\u2019 column published in the Stabroek News today: \u201cMedia reports indicate that the officer\u2019s wife set up a company about a year ago, which company became one of suppliers of the Police Force with the full knowledge of senior officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs\u2026 the Public Procurement Commission should also be involved in the investigation in keeping with its mandate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is most distressing is that the NPTAB offered no objection to the company being included in the list of suppliers for the force. It is not clear whether the NPTAB carried out the necessary background checks before offering its no objection. Such checks would normally include a scrutiny of the incorporation and other documents to ascertain, among others, how reputable the company is, who are the real owners, whether there is any connection with members of the force, and any other matters that may pose a conflict of interest. If the NPTAB did not conduct such checks, it would have been guilty of a serious dereliction of duty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contacted yesterday, NPTAB Chairman Tarrachand Balgobin told Stabroek News that he was out of the country but referred this newspaper to CEO Arvin Parag, who said he would address questions today.<\/p>\n

In July, Home Affairs Minister Robeson Benn informed that the allegations of financial impropriety made against Brutus were being investigated by the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU).<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Last week, President Irfaan Ali told reporters that SOCU was handling the matter with regard to the Brutus case and he would not intrude.<\/p>\n

Ali\u2019s stance was echoed by Commissioner of Police (ag) Clifton Hicken, who also said that SOCU was an independent agency and had been given unrestricted scope to do its work.<\/p>\n

Goolsarran said that since SOCU was also a part of the Guyana Police Force, \u201cit would have been more appropriate for the Audit Office to undertake a forensic audit of the matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

As regards the NPTAB, he said that there have been several calls by the public and accountability observers for its complete reorganisation so that it can be seen as independent of government control and influence. \u201cHowever, our pleas have so far fallen on deaf ears,\u201d he contended.<\/p>\n

Goolsarran pointed out that allegations of irregularities in the disciplined services were not new as successive reports of the Auditor General over the years have highlighted mismanagement and irregularities in the use of public resources.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is sad to note that over the years, both the Guyana Police Force and the Guyana Defence Force have been the major violators of the financial rules and regulations as well as the procurement procedures, without evidence of any sanctions being imposed on the perpetrators. Instead, they are being handsomely rewarded, especially with a one month tax free bonus at the end of the year to the exclusion of public servants, teachers, nurses and other categories of government employees,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Going back to 2003, Goolsarran noted that it was reported that there were numerous breaches in the Tender Board Regulations. In particular, there was evidence of contract-splitting to avoid adjudication by the then Central Tender Board. This practice resulted in irregularities in excess of $50 million in the purchase of uniform material.<\/p>\n

He related that further details, as gleaned from the Auditor General\u2019s report for 2003, indicated: \u201c(a) Amounts totalling $168.514 million were expended on the purchase of items of uniform, including uniform material. However, there was no evidence of the involvement of the Central Tender Board. In fact, there were 279 purchases totalling $145.926 million falling within the limits of $180,000 and $600,000 which would have been adjudicated by the Departmental Tender Board. It is evident that the purchases were divided into lots of on average $523,000 to bring them within the limits of the Departmental Tender Board. (b) An examination of the Departmental Tender Board minutes relating to the above purchases revealed that there were no minutes for 102 transactions valued at $58.316 million, although there was reference to such minutes on the payment vouchers. Further examination of the foolscap book in which the minutes were kept revealed that the preparation of minutes was discontinued in June 2003. In addition, the minutes were not written by the Secretary of the Tender Board but by a junior rank who was not part of the proceedings of the Tender Board. These observations would raise doubts as to whether or not meetings were actually held, especially in view of the fact that there were no details relating to the opening bids and the discussions that followed leading to the award.<\/p>\n

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

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Image pexels-ekaterina<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Guyana Former auditor general Anand Goolsarran has flayed the National Pro-curement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) over its apparent role in what could be a conflict-of-interest situation now that investigations…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1091,"featured_media":37962,"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":[157,116,71],"class_list":["post-37938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-articles","tag-anti-corruption","tag-guyana","tag-procurement"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Guilty-pexels-ekaterina-bolovtsova-6077356.jpg?fit=1024%2C682&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6u9Qa-9RU","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":37947,"url":"https:\/\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/socu-gets-tender-board-documents-on-brutus-probe\/","url_meta":{"origin":37938,"position":0},"title":"SOCU gets tender board documents on Brutus probe","author":"Mayra Bonilla Lopez","date":"January 9, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Guyana police were responsible for list with questionable bidder SOCU has acquired documents relating to procurement for the Guyana Police Force (GPF) from the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) as it continues its investigation of financial impropriety claims against Deputy Police Commissioner Calvin Brutus. NPTAB has also made\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\/2025\/01\/pexels-pixabay-532001-scaled-e1736464307330.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/pexels-pixabay-532001-scaled-e1736464307330.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/pexels-pixabay-532001-scaled-e1736464307330.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/pexels-pixabay-532001-scaled-e1736464307330.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":24585,"url":"https:\/\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/ministry-nptab-cabinet-all-at-fault-over-kares-contract-goolsarran\/","url_meta":{"origin":37938,"position":1},"title":"Ministry, NPTAB, Cabinet all at fault over Kares contract \u2013 Goolsarran","author":"Mayra Bonilla Lopez","date":"October 13, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Guyana Former Auditor General Anand Goolsarran says the Ministry of Education, the national tender board and Cabinet all failed in their duty to the public by not acting to stop Kares Engineering Inc from securing a $566.9m North Ruimveldt Secondary School contract considering its previous poor performance on an even\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\/10\/pexels-cottonbro-5185078-scaled-e1682644109523.jpg?fit=1025%2C730&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/pexels-cottonbro-5185078-scaled-e1682644109523.jpg?fit=1025%2C730&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/pexels-cottonbro-5185078-scaled-e1682644109523.jpg?fit=1025%2C730&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/pexels-cottonbro-5185078-scaled-e1682644109523.jpg?fit=1025%2C730&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":24598,"url":"https:\/\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/government-not-absolved-from-pointing-out-breaches-in-awards-of-contracts-goolsarran\/","url_meta":{"origin":37938,"position":2},"title":"Government not absolved from pointing out breaches in awards of contracts \u2013 Goolsarran","author":"Mayra Bonilla Lopez","date":"October 13, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Guyana Following President Irfaan Ali\u2019s defence of the $556.9 million award to Kares Contracting for the construction of the North Ruimveldt Multilateral School in Georgetown, former Auditor General, Anand Goolsarran, says that government is not absolved from pointing out breaches in the awards of contracts as per the Pro-curement Act\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\/10\/pexels-anete-lusina-4792282-scaled-e1665684983652.jpg?fit=1024%2C836&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/pexels-anete-lusina-4792282-scaled-e1665684983652.jpg?fit=1024%2C836&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/pexels-anete-lusina-4792282-scaled-e1665684983652.jpg?fit=1024%2C836&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/pexels-anete-lusina-4792282-scaled-e1665684983652.jpg?fit=1024%2C836&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6602,"url":"https:\/\/projectcalls.com\/dev\/hdm-drug-deal-breached-procurement-regulations\/","url_meta":{"origin":37938,"position":3},"title":"HDM drug deal breached procurement regulations","author":"Michele Marius","date":"August 26, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The Ministry of Public Health\u00a0 breached the country\u2019s procurement regulations when it went to restricted tendering for the $366.9M in pharmaceuticals to HDM Labs last year and the act was condoned by the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB), former Auditor General Anand Goolsarran says. 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