Try as it may, the Government of Guyana has failed to convince critics and skeptics that the company selected to build the road for the Amaila Falls Hydro Project, Synergy Holdings Inc, was properly qualified to be chosen and has the wherewithal to deliver the job.
Irrespective of the contract that now exists between Synergy and the government via the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Ltd (NICIL), it would be a gross dereliction of duty and recklessness with the public purse for the government to proceed headlong in this process without providing the facts that would justify its decision or amending even at this late stage errors in judgement that might have been made in the selection of the contractor.
The government and NICIL have been pinned into a corner by virtue of guidelines set in the Request for Proposals (RFP) which NICIL itself had issued. The task that Synergy has signed on to includes the upgrading of 85 km of existing roadway and the construction of approximately 110 km of virgin roadway in the jungle. Quite naturally, because of the demanding nature of the work and the specialized skills entailed, the RFP includes a requirement that the contractor identify similar large scale project experience over the previous five years providing “examples of scope of work, project location and costs” as well as “references and credentials…including contact information for project managers and/or owners with whom (the contractor) has worked”.
As far as public information went, Synergy Holdings was not known to have had such experience either here or further afield. This gap in information was something that could be easily remedied by any number of persons providing the substantiating information to show that Synergy was fully responsive to the RFP. Certainly the information should have been volunteered by Synergy itself outside of whatever was contained in its formal response to the RFP. It has so far not done this and industrious efforts by the media have thus far failed to yield any evidence of its involvement in large-scale road building projects here or abroad.
Even if Synergy was bashful about supplying this information, certainly it behoved those who were involved in the receipt and evaluation of the proposals to make a public declaration in the name of transparency and openness in public procurement particularly considering the amount of money to be expended and the scale of the project – worth at least US$450m – that was to follow.
The media has been similarly disappointed. Mr Winston Brassington, the Head of NICIL, the receiving agency for the proposals has not supplied the information. It can hardly be the case that release of the information would put Synergy at a commercial disadvantage or breach iron-clad confidences. Certainly the public right to know and to be convinced of the rectitude of the decision-making in this process exceeds any undisclosed conventions which may be preventing the release of this information by NICIL.
Though the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) was not the body entrusted with evaluating the proposals and making the final decision, this newspaper contacted the Chairman of the Board, Mr Donald De Clou to ascertain whether he was aware of this process and comfortable with it given that statutorily the NPTAB should have been the agency presiding over this matter and not NICIL. Mr De Clou was not inclined to speak now or later, very troubling considering the immensity of the project at hand and the serious transparency issues that shrouded this particular procurement.
When he had been asked by a SN reporter in Oslo, Norway about the choice of Synergy Holdings and whether it had the relevant road experience, President Jagdeo gave the usual spiel about severing Synergy from the project if it failed to meet the standard required. He provided no light on the requirements but mounted a strenuous defence of the process by saying it evolved through public tender where a technical team assessed capability and price and then a recommendation was made to the national tender board which was followed by Cabinet’s perfunctory no-objection. “This is the process that we have to follow. That’s the only transparent process”, he told this newspaper. The President probably meant to say NICIL when he referred to the tender board and that agency of course was not the vehicle for transparency that had been envisaged by the constitution reform process. The President also made much of the supervision of the road work and the fact that it would be underpinned by a bond. This is cold comfort for citizens and also conveniently ignores the questions about the propriety of the selection of Synergy.
President Jagdeo did however identify well-known engineer, Mr Walter Willis as the person who headed the engineers who evaluated the bids. Mr Willis when contacted by this newspaper was initially willing to be interviewed on the process but later had a change of heart and most inexplicably asked that this newspaper contact the Government Information Agency for the requisite information.
The President also drew the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) into the equation by saying that it would be working along with the government to ensure that environmental standards are in place and that the impact of the road-building work on the ecosystem and nearby communities would be minimized. While the IDB’s role in this road-building enterprise is still to be delineated, its mere presence will not satisfy the public that everything is above board with this deal.
Whether Synergy is sub-contracting road building is still to be demystified but there was a separate set of requirements for such an occurrence in the RFP and those, too, would have been onerous and should have been disclosed. Such an eventuality would also have posed the question as to why Synergy was tendering for the roads if it was subcontracting the task particularly if it had no other obvious skill to bring to the project. Synergy has already had a charmed and extraordinarily lucky association with the project. After having been associated with the project for a decade and undoubtedly being privy to much of the technical details, Synergy was able to win what has been described by the government as a public tender. Most extraordinary. As an aside, and considering the scale of the project, it is very surprising that no overseas firm tendered a bid for the Amaila road.
A project worth at least US$450m and of a scale as grand as the damming of the Amaila has to be initiated and pursued on the surest and firmest grounds. While every journey begins with the smallest step, a shaky start can be a disastrous plunge over the Amaila Falls. Even by the standards of this government which has managed an entire decade without the presence of a public procurement tribunal, an engineer’s act and scrupulous adherence to public tender rules, the unending questions of why Synergy and whether it has the requisite attributes to discharge its obligations raise dire concerns about how this project will proceed. All we want is to be assured that Synergy can professionally upgrade roads, build new roads in jungle and clear and maintain pathways for transmission lines. Is that too much to ask?
