Procurement body continuing to blacklist contractors over falsified submissions
The Public Procurement Commission (PPC) is continuing to blacklist contractors over the supply of false information and it remains hopeful that the penalty will deter others bidding for state contracts from breaching public tendering regulations.
“The PPC hopes that it will serve as a deterrent because it is not fair if contractors are awarded contracts on the basis of false information or any other breach outlined in the regulations,” PPC Chairperson Carol Corbin told Sunday Stabroek.
“It also indicates that evaluators and review boards will be more meticulous in their examination of tender submissions. [The] ultimate goal is to improve the public procurement system because poor performance on contracts is also a ground for debarment,” Corbin added.
Just over a week ago, the PPC announced the most recent debarment, that of Manboadram Sukhai trading as M. Sukhai Contracting Services, for a period of one year effective April 22, 2020.
Corbin pointed to the listing on the PPC’s website of 15 debarments and noted that in each case the specific ground for the sanction was the provision of false information in the submission of a tender.
The 15 listings on the PPC website, dating back to 2016, comprise at least seven firms/individuals, and three others that appear to share the same addresses in Lethem and on the East Bank but were trading under different names. The periods for which they are barred from bidding for state contracts range from one year to 12 years. “We also automatically debarred contractors debarred by our development partner. This is a provision of the Debarment Regulations, which came into effect mid-2019,” Corbin explained. (It is for this reason that the Lethem-based Vevakanand Dalip Enterprise, which was debarred by the IDB from December, 2018 until December 2030, has also been debarred for the same period here.)
The PPC has notified all government agencies of the debarments in order to ensure that they do not award those listed any further contracts.
In a circular seen by this newspaper, the PPC said no procuring entity shall solicit or accept bids, proposals or quotations from a debarred supplier or contractor, or consider bids, proposals or quotations submitted by a debarred supplier or contractor. It added that any suspension or debarment of a potential bidder or supplier would not affect any existing contact entered into between the supplier or contractor and the procuring entity.
“NO supplier or contractor shall subcontract with any supplier or contractor that is subject to a debarment or suspension order. No procuring entity shall give consent to any subcontract with any supplier or contractor that is subject to a debarment or suspension order,” it further added.
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Image: Gerd Altmann (Pixabay)
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