With the election recount results showing a loss for the incumbent APNU+AFC, the owner of the Liliendaal property where a billion-dollar infectious diseases hospital has been erected and the contractors involved could face a long wait for payment and searing questions as the winner of the polls, the PPP/C has raised a flurry of accountability issues about the project.
“We have to review it. There will be a review,” Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo told this newspaper on Friday.
“Right now the entire country is in the dark on the price of the land, how the contractors were procured, if it was transparently purchased… and we still don’t know,” he added.
It is the current political impasse and the likely change in government that has Jacob Rambarran, owner of the three-acre Liliendaal property currently being transformed from hotel to COVID-19 Hospital, worried as he has not yet been paid for the property which was acquired through compulsory acquisition.
“We have not received any money as yet, nothing,” Rambarran told Sunday Stabroek when contacted on Friday.
“Yes, I am worried. You have to be worried because of the uncertainty…,” he added, when asked if he was concerned about the possible change in government and the project being terminated.
Sources told this newspaper that many of the contractors who are working on the facility have not yet been paid by government and have been told that there is no access to funds to pay them as yet.
“We were told that government don’t really have no money now but when this political situation [is] over, we will get paid. With government you take a while to get your money, yes, but you know that it is certain. That is why I continue to work…,” one contractor, who did not want to be named, said.
When this newspaper yesterday visited the site on Friday, a subcontractor had just finished installing several air conditioning units in the main building.
There was no one on site to speak to this newspaper about the project.
The incumbent APNU+AFC government has not made public the details of the project or who the contractors are and how they were selected.
However, this newspaper understands that there are about eight contractors who the Ministry of Public Health hired to undertake the construction and provide other services for the project. Each is responsible for various sections of the property.
The procurement of goods, services and the execution of works are governed by the Procurement Act, which promotes competition among suppliers and contractors, as well as fairness and transparency in the procurement process.
Problems with payments
Another contractor, Ivor Allen, said that there are some “problems with payments” but he told this newspaper that he did not want to discuss that matter in public, as he felt it was an issue between him and the procuring agency, and it was up to him if he wanted to continue to work.
Allen said that for all of last year he received one contract from the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) and no one cared to ask how he survived.
On April 4, de facto Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, who is Chairman of the National COVID-19 Task Force (NCTF), told a virtual press conference that the hotel had been identified to be transformed into a dedicated COVID-19 hospital.
Nagamootoo added that several other buildings, including one on High Street at the site of the former Guyana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), the National Gymnasium and the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall were also being inspected to be potential COVID-19 facilities.
The consideration, he had explained, was based on a suggestion made by the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/ WHO) for the establishment of a specific COVID-19 hospital in light of dire projections that the COVID-19 pandemic could overwhelm the health system here as there were a limited number of hospital beds for infectious patients.
Later, on April 16, then Director General of the Ministry of the Presidency, Joseph Harmon told the media that while the Ocean View Hotel was being converted into the first dedicated COVID-19 hospital in the Caribbean, the financial arrangements around that conversion were still being worked out.
Then, following the start of works to transform the hotel, de facto Minister of Finance Winston Jordan indicated that it will cost taxpayers over $1 billion to transform the hotel into a specialised care facility.
Asked if the cost included a purchase price, Jordan said that was a “different matter which can’t be dealt with at this time.”
Frenetic work with dozens of labourers immediately began at the facility as major structural changes were required and a new section has been added to the building.
However, late April, there was another twist when the government gazetted a notice that it was seeking to compulsorily acquire the property. The order was signed by de facto Minister of Public Health Volda Lawrence under the Acquisition of Lands for Public Purposes Act.
Use of the compulsory acquisition provision has usually been seen as draconian and retrograde.
This newspaper then reached out to Rambarran, who said that he was still in negotiations over a price for the property but was confident that he will be satisfied when the deal is completed.
“I have confidence in the President and Minister of Health that I will get a good deal,” he had said, even as he explained that because it was an ongoing negotiation, he did not at that time wish to discuss any details.
When asked about the issue of government acquir ing his property via compulsory acquisition he again said that he could not discuss it. “I am a businessman and I have to be mindful of what I say,” he said.
When he was contacted again on Friday he said that he had not yet been paid and was worried.
And while Jordan has indicated that it will cost taxpayers over $1 billion to transform the facility, his office said that it would not speak on the project.
“We are not speaking to anyone. You should direct your questions to the secretariat of the National Task Force,” Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Finance Wanita Huburn said.
Told that it was Jordan who had spoken on the finances and the project, she replied, “He spoke because he was asked about it”.
This newspaper tried to contact the Task Force Secretariat’s Chief Executive Officer Harmon but calls and messages to his phone went unanswered.
The project has already come on the radar of Auditor General Deodat Sharma, who has said his office is “watching spending for the COVID-19 emergency and this Ocean View project is of concern.
For the PPP/C, the lack of details about the project remains a concern and it believes that before a decision is taken on keeping, modifying or terminating the project, a detailed review must be undertaken.
Jagdeo said that the only information on the project is what has been reported in the press and complaints made about the lack of transparency. “We heard that it was compulsorily acquired, we are not sure if was concluded. And if it was concluded, what price was paid for it. We do not know who did the design and if it was fitting for a hospital for infectious diseases. Were there bills of quantity prepared? Who did them? The practice was not a transparent one so we have to examine it to see if we got value for money,” he said.
