Following President Irfaan Ali’s defence of the $556.9 million award to Kares Contracting for the construction of the North Ruimveldt Multilateral School in Georgetown, former Auditor General, Anand Goolsarran, says that government is not absolved from pointing out breaches in the awards of contracts as per the Pro-curement Act and should have objected.
“Cabinet is also not a passive player in its involvement in the procurement process. It has a duty under Section 54 of the Procurement Act to first review the streamlined evaluation report prepared by NPTAB, setting out the basis for the proposed award of a contract. Cabinet can object to the award of a contract if all the procedures have not been followed,” Goolsarran wrote in this week’s edition of his Accountability Column in the Stabroek News.
“In the case of the Kares contract, one of the key qualification requirements relates to past performance, which both the Ministry of Education and NPTAB failed to consider,” he highlighted.
Last week, during an exclusive interview with this newspaper, President Irfaan Ali when asked about the contract, surmised that that all awards for government contracts follow the law and that there is only so much government can do.
“This was a public tender. What are we to do? If you went out, if you go to public tender, a public process, people participate in the process, there’s a recommendation that goes to the tender board, the Board sends a recommendation to Cabinet, who can who only have a response… what else is there to do?” Ali questioned during the interview.
The President was asked about concerns of perceived procurement corruption with large public projects and his government’s justification for the Kares award.
“First of all, I do not control the tender process. Every single project went out to public tender. In that public tender, the bids were received, there is an evaluation by the tender board and the recommendation sent to Cabinet. All we do is offer a no- objection,” he stressed. The president said that the governing party has “no affiliation” with the company awarded the contract. “I don’t know the party having any affiliation with any person, Kares or anyone else, that is the justification for someone getting a project.”
Goolsarran has said that the Ministry of Education, NPTAB, and Cabinet, all failed in their duty to the public by not acting to stop Kares Engineering Inc from securing the $566.9 million North Ruimveldt Secondary School contract considering its previous poor performance on an even larger project.
In his accountability column, last week, he said that after the Evaluation Committee of NPTAB had concluded its work and recommended Kares, the procuring agency – the Ministry of Education – had an obligation to take account of Kares’ disastrous work on the $728m Kato Secondary School project of 2012. Goolsarran said that Section 5 of the Procure-ment Act sets out the responsibilities of the procuring entity in relation to the criteria to be used in determining the qualifications of contractors and suppliers. “Included in the list of criteria is the requirement that past performance substantiated by documentary evidence would commend the concerned contractor or supplier for serious consideration for the award of the contract. The Ministry of Education therefore had the obligation of ensuring that Kares Engineering met this criterion before consideration of its tender,” he contended.
Another procurement specialist told this newspaper that the procuring entity, the Ministry of Educa-tion, “should have, as a rule, ensured that their tender document asked questions about previous performance and this was a glaring one since it was the same Ministry that had that experience with the disastrous Kato School.” The specialist agreed with Goolsarran saying that, “The NPTAB also erred badly or looked the other way.”
Ali said that he believes that all the processes were followed and emphasised that it was all done under public scrutiny. “This is a public process. So we [should] abandon this public process? I don’t understand. I don’t understand the genesis of these issues. I don’t understand how we derive or we even come to a position that these are issues for us, when you’re going through a mechanism; you’re going through a public process,” he said. Asked if he is satisfied with the current processes, he replied, “I have to be satisfied with the institutional arrangements surrounding [it] and the laws. The laws are there on how bids are advertised and how bids are received. We don’t involve ourselves in that. There is a Procure-ment Act. There is a National Procurement and Tender Administration Board. It is a public advertisement. What else can the government do? What else are we supposed to do?” he asked.
The procurement specialist said that the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) could have also investigated given that they have the legal authority to, even without a complaint.
“There was enough of a public outcry about the previous project that should have put everyone on notice. The PPC has the authority to investigate how the contract was awarded. They can investigate any part of the process. They are the oversight body with the power, particularly if something smells ‘fishy’! They should investigate this one even if it is just to assure the public that there is no corruption involved in the process,” the official said.
This week, Goolsarran emphasised that at varying points of the procurement process, the Ministry of Education, NPTAB, and the Cabinet that the President presides over, should have taken action to safeguard public spending.
He said that the President may have overlooked the fact “that even the best of systems and procedures are likely to produce less than the desired results if officials responsible of overseeing those systems and procedures are not selected on the basis of certain established criteria.
“These include professional and technical competence; proven track record in the related fields; demonstrated objectivity, integrity, independence and ethical behavior; and the ability to put the public interest above all other interests,” the former AG informed.
However, he noted that unfortunately, the evidence suggests that quite the opposite happens in respect of several key non-political appointments, as he pointed to appointments at the NPTAB Board.
“Selection is often based on political loyalty and/or party affiliation, as well as on the belief that the appointed official may be swayed to manipulate rules and procedures to favour a certain desired outcome,” Goolsarran contended.
He pointed out that the current NPTAB Board’s tenure ends in the next ten days and expressed the hope that the appointment of its new members will be based on the above-stated criteria.
“The appointment of the current chairperson, who is a senior official of the Ministry of Finance, was to have been a temporary one, but this was not to be. The Procurement Act provides for a two full-time persons to sit on the seven-member board, including the chairperson,” he highlights.
He is appealing to the future Board to not only make the minutes of the awards public but also the basis of contract awards.
“In addition, a scrutiny of the minutes of the weekly tender board meetings posted on NPTAB’s website shows only a spreadsheet listing of the various bids received, the amounts involved and certain other information. There is no indication of the basis of the award. We trust that the new NPTAB will consider it necessary to make available on its website, the actual discussions that take place leading to the contract award,” he said
Further, he added, “also, should the report of the Evaluation Committee not be made available to the public via NPTAB’s website in the interest of transparency and proper accountability?
