The Auditor General (AG) was on Monday asked to investigate instances of contract splitting which occurred under the Region 6 (East Berbice/Corentyne) administration in 2016, and to report to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on the matter.
Section 14 of the Procurement Act states that “A procuring entity shall not split or cause to split contracts or divide or cause to divide its procurement into separate contracts where the sole purpose for doing so is to avoid the application of any provision of this Act or any regulations made thereunder.”
When the region appeared before the committee in April, the Regional Executive Officer (REO) Kim Williams-Stephen had been questioned on what was purported to have been the emergency purchase of gloves within a five-month period. Those transactions included seven purchases in April—all on the same day—two in May, three in July and two in August.
