Minister in the Ministry of Finance Juan Edghill yesterday defended the system used to award government contracts, saying it is open, transparent and with no preferential treatment given to friends of the party in government.
Edghill told participants at a Procurement Evaluator Training Session at the Guyana International Conference Centre that the procurement system is open and transparent, when compared to any jurisdiction in the Caribbean or even in Latin America. “…We advertise, sealed bids are deposited in the bid box, all bidders or their representatives can be present, the media is present, the bids price is announced for all to hear. There is no backroom wheeling and dealing and we should not allow any person in this country who have their own agenda and their own interests to suggest that public procurement is for a few to meet in a backroom to wheel and deal,” he declared.
He noted that there is “a lot of noise” about transparency. “Let me just say this very clearly [that] President [Donald] Ramotar and this administration take a very serious view to transparency… He [the president] doesn’t care if the contractor is a party comrade. That’s not the issue under consideration. No bid document says you must say you are a party comrade. It’s not a criterion. We are dealing with the objectivity of what is in the bid document,” he added.
President Ramotar will today address a Public Procurement Symposium at the same venue, where many contractors who have criticised the manner in which large contracts are awarded plan to ventilate their concerns. In the absence of the Public Procurement Commission, contractors have over the years raised concerns about the award of large government contracts and accused the governing party of favouring its supporters, while at the same time denying taxpayers value-for-money work.
The symposium, like the training session, has been organised by the Finance Ministry and the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB), and it is intended to provide a forum for information sharing on procurement laws, regulations and procedures in order to ensure greater fairness, transparency and public accountability. The NPTAB will also launch its new standard bidding document at today’s symposium.
Edghill said he hoped that the forum erases the public misconception that a bidder has to know someone in authority or that some bidders are pre-selected. He added that government wants to have the bidding pool increased, since more bidders for a contract is a sign of confidence in the procurement system. “We want to ensure that there is greater confidence in our procurement system… the only way that we could adequately measure greater confidence in a measureable way is when we see more people bidding,” he explained.
Using the recent tendering for the construction of the Leonora Fire Station as an example, Edghill noted that 18 contractors bid for the project. “What it means [is] that people believe that the system will work for them… Whenever people are not bidding is a cause for concern. Whenever we see in a particular sector three, four or five bids and are repeating constantly we have some concerns,” he added.
No interference
At yesterday’s training session for national and regional evaluators, officials emphasised the need for evaluators to conform to necessary business ethics and integrity. Edghill said the aim is to ensure that “at all levels” every effort is being made “to minimise fraud and collusion.” The public, he noted, must understand that all have a role to play in having a transparent process.
“It must be free from the political directorate. I am not referring to government but politicians as a whole. Oftentimes, when people publicly criticise you, that is a form of manipulation and control, because what they are actually saying is that if you don’t do our bidding, we will sling you up in the public spaces and that in itself is a form of manipulation,” he said. “Whether it’s coming from the media, an opposition politician or contractor… we want to ensure you are free from external interference because if we are going to make a process work, the persons must have that,” he added.
Edghill also pointed to the need for transparency and integrity in processing bids to ensure that they meet the criterion of lowest responsive bids. “Responsive” entails having the capacity to do the work effectively and within the required time frame and has nothing to do with the lowest bid, as many think, he informed.
“There are some troubling areas we might explore… if a bidder comes in very low, below the engineer’s estimate, what consideration is there for that man to be awarded and then coming back for variation. You come in low and then go for a variation and when we add the bid price to the variation, it might have been better to give the man with the highest price the job in the first place,” he said as he advised evaluators about being alert and holistic in their work.
There was also a detailed PowerPoint presentation on the procurement process, from the time of bidding to contract award and notification of non awardees as well as a discussion of case studies by Fredrick Flatts.
Tarachand Balgobin, a Ministry of Finance official, stated that contrary to the belief of the public, Cabinet and donors do not award contracts but instead give their objections or no-objections to the contract being granted. “The NPTAB is an awards board. They make awards, not the Cabinet, not the donor. Even in a foreign-funded project, the award is made by NPTAB, subject to the no-objection of Cabinet and donors, or, in cases made to it by its Evaluation Committee.
That is why this is important. The work is critical to the NPTAB making a decision; that is to say, making an award,” Balgobin explained.
