Dear Editor,

Synergy continues to keep this US$15.4 million of Guyanese taxpayers’ money.

This government must be seriously hard-headed or vain. There is nothing wrong with a frank admission of making a mistake and making amends. This is taxpayers’ money here. US$15.4 million of it. Most importantly, there is still time for the Government of Guyana to pull this contract. Synergy has given the government that time by failing to start on time, not a wholly unexpected event. Plausible reasons the government refuses to renege on the contract are (1) the government promised to reward or is rewarding Synergy for its diligence and perseverance and nothing more (2) wilful blindness (3) negligence. No. 1 is not a good enough reason to spend poor people’s taxes and sweat, blood and tears. No 2 is beyond question as Synergy’s inexperience is very public knowledge and the media and public have vociferously demanded the government revoke the deal. No. 3 is a very reasonable claim as an elected government owes a duty to the nation and that duty requires it to act reasonably in the nation’s best interest. Giving a contract of this magnitude to an entity without requisite experience is negligent. The government has knowledge or ought to have knowledge of the inexperience of the entity from its own consultant and the public and media told it so. To still select that entity is negligent. Let me help the President out here. He doesn’t need to ask the technical evaluators for information on how Synergy won the contract. They won on price and nothing else. They placed the lowest bid.

Apart from that fact, they are clearly inferior to every other bidder on every other technical requirement.

Synergy’s winning bid is smashing evidence of the broken debacle this system is and how it results in travesty in the use of public resources. The government has ultimate authority to reject even a winning bid. It is now more than a month since the contract was awarded and Synergy cannot start because it never possessed the capability to act on the time-sensitive requirement of the bid, which means Synergy has yet again failed with respect to the bid.

Is it proper for public resources to be used by the government to put up a bond with an insurance company rather than have the company put that bond up itself as it customarily done in the industry? Synergy has zero financial exposure in this process except its claimed expenditure of US$1 million. That is not the government’s concern because as licensee Synergy was required to spend its own capital to get a project.

The government cannot claim lack of knowledge or missing information. It knows fully well. The media has assaulted and destroyed these defences.

Synergy currently costs every single Guyanese US$21 and every taxpayer US$38. These people include the majority of Guyanese and the majority of PPP supporters. When a government refuses to listen to the majority of its people in this instance, serious aspersions must be cast on its decision and the motives. Now with the President’s recent equivocations it is unclear if Guyanese will even be employed in building these roads and bridges and forest clearing. Looks like the Chinese will send their workers and will oversee Synergy. This must be a condition of the loan the Chinese agreed to sign. Therefore, Synergy will do nothing but stand on the sidelines while the Chinese with knowledge, expertise and experience in road building construct the roads.

For every day Synergy fails to start and delays this project, it will cost Guyanese more in interest on the loan. But there is no penalty on Synergy despite President Jagdeo’s puffery because his government is left holding the bag with Hand-in-Hand and it has shown no willingness to correct this epic mistake. I have to give it to the Chinese for outsmarting yet another third world leader desperate for a contract to ratify a poorly contemplated decision. They got their people to work on the project collecting wages from their own money and the ultimate catch is that they will also get every dollar of interest owed to them by the Guyana government while collecting those wages. Give a loan and get some of it back in wages plus interest is the kind of return given by the inept.

President Jagdeo, the government of Guyana and the PPP party, you still have time. The ball is in your court.

Yours faithfully,
Michael Maxwell