BK International Inc has lodged a protest with the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) over the award of a $3.5 billion contract for the expansion of the Mazaruni Prison and a key part of the company’s complaint is the alleged “overnight” increasing of the engineer’s estimate for the project from $2.8 billion to $3.1 billion.
In the wake of deadly unrest last year and in 2016 at the Camp Street jail in Georgetown, the APNU+AFC government has come under intense pressure to improve security and ease overcrowding at key facilities and the Mazaruni expansion constitutes the most significant reform. It is unclear what impact the BK protest will have on the execution of the project.
According to documents seen by the Sunday Stabroek, BK began expressing concerns about the bidding process on December 29th, 2017 to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Public Security, Daneilla McCalmon.
However, by then, a
