Dear Editor,
Guinea fowls or birds have long had a special place in the English language and more recently have had the distinction of starting at least one international war. In Guyana, as those old enough to have kept these domesticated birds or to have lived near to neighbours who bred them know, they are valued not only for their ability to warn of the presence of strangers (and burglars) by their loud cackling but especially for their hens being adroit at diverting attention from the nest of their eggs by this very device.
I was reminded of the Guinea fowl recently when I read press reports concerning an address delivered on the final day of a National Procurement Conference held at the Guyana International Conference Centre on August 3. In that address President Ramotar informed the gathering that he had instructed the Ministry of Finance and the Attorney General’s office to enforce the penalty clauses in contracts and to review the relevant laws.
In addition, he is also reported to have said, “I’m even asking them to examine the possibility of black listing people – contractors, engineers and consultants – who consistently produce jobs that cost us more money than they actually cost us.“
If these reports are accurate the President will have turned a page in the history of corruption in the PPP administration. We shall await the outcome of his instructions. But even as we await this outcome we cannot afford to hold our breath let alone get our hopes up too high. This is not the first time that the firms involved in cost over-runs for various works have been so threatened with no result. On May 29, 2010 during an IDB/NPTB forum, the Deputy Head of the latter organisation, Mr Rahim, stated: “The National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) is moving to implement a system where defaulting contractors could be blacklisted from bidding for future projects.” For good measure Mr Rahim, went on to say, according to a Stabroek News report carried in its August 3 2010 issue under the caption, ‘Procurement Board to implement blacklisting,‘ that the NPTAB was considering hiring a consultant to help it determine “the rules, regulations, and the system to implement blacklisting.” The President might wish to inform the nation why the system for blacklisting is not in place two years after the Deputy Head of the NPTAB said it would be.
In the meantime, several factors should be borne in mind as regards our contractors. First, the existing Tender Board has been characterized by discriminatory behaviour and practices. They routinely break the law and no one is in a position to do much about it for fear of retaliation and due to a weak civil society and poor legal support for civil actions against the state entities. The Auditor General routinely reports on these abuses without any serious attempt to take action or to get the PAC to sanction those infringing the Tender Administration Procurement Act.
Secondly, 20 years of corruption and discrimination in the award of contracts has left us with a well established and wealthy pool of contractors, the largest of whom are in a position to compete legitimately, if they need to so do.
The members of this pool are either affiliated with the PPP or their survival depends on PPP largesse. Firms with owners critical of government policies have been weeded out. It will continue to be largely an Indian-dominated sector because of discrimination. Indeed, the tributes to the late Everall Eranklyn in the National Assembly last Thursday, point to the lengths to which one African contractor had to go in order to secure contracts over which the government and its surrogates had a say.
Fourthly, there are enough extant cases of poor contracts for the President and the government agencies to be able to take action that would effectively bring the worst abuses to an end and to send a salutary message to the relevant agencies and contractors. Blacklisting is a red herring. More condign and urgent action needs to, and can, be taken now.
Fifthly, unbelievably, it appears that the most prominent and lucrative contracts seem to have no enforceable penalty and performance clauses. This appears to be the case in the Skeldon and the Marriot contracts.
Finally, the practice of awarding contracts without competition is the single most costly source of cost over-runs and abuse. The government has become a past master of these. The GuySuCo Skeldon factory was a single contract, the access road to Amaila Falls hydro site is another. No action has been taken against either firm. The sums involved are large and the compensation and monies that could be recouped on behalf of Guyanese taxpayers would be significant. The airport ‘extension’ is another. The government proposes to do the same with the so-called Marriot Hotel as well as the Amaila Falls hydro. These sweetheart deals lie at the heart of the problem. It involves a very limited range of foreign Chinese firms, only some of which are state firms with strong financial relations and, in some cases, sub-contracts with local Chinese businessmen who are friends and associates of former officials. The firms are both powerful and unscrupulous, and have in some cases been fingered in deals that have attracted the attention, if not the opprobrium of UN agencies.
The Kaieteur News of the same date reported that Mr Ramotar promised new rules for tendering, but he Ramotar would be better advised to worry about the establishment of a Procurement Commission to replace the discredited NPTAB. At the moment, the establishment of the commission which has long been approved by the National Assembly is awaiting the submission of names by the political parties after which the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will need to take steps to have the body established.
The big hurdle facing the PAC is securing the agreement of the parties on the method of selection of the experts. The parties seem inclined to submit one or two names each in the hope that the named would meet with the approval of the other parties. However, the PPP can be expected to use its veto to rule out experts that the government feels are likely to be too effective or who cannot be intimidated. A more objective method therefore would be to have an independent and highly respected international firm or body review and choose five names from the CVs and backgrounds of five experts proposed by each party.
Mr Ramotar has yet to demonstrate that he is serious about rooting out the corruption associated with procurement. Agreeing at the PAC to an independent selection of the list of experts would go a long way to assuaging concerns about his seriousness as regards stamping out corruption and abuse. On the other hand, his announcement of a black-list, even if implemented, merely serves to divert attention from the real action. As with the Guinea hen, we need to ignore the raising of the decibels and wait to see what, if anything, follows at the real place of action, the Procurement Commission.
Yours faithfully,
Carl B Greenidge
