Attorney General Anil Nandlall SC has justified government’s sole-sourcing of the US$34 million e-ID project contending that the sensitivity of the data it would contain requires world class security features from trusted companies and an “open market” opens the floodgates to data being compromised.
And like the same sole-sourcing process that is triggered under the national security clause of the Procurement Act when procuring passports here, government saw the e-ID data as a sensitive issue and a matter of national security.
“Briefly, on that procurement of the resident card, that contract was single sourced. These are not contracts that can go to open tendering. They involve matters of national security. They involve national documents that require protective mechanisms that you can’t go on the open market to compete for,” Nandlall on Tuesday evening said on his “Issues in the News” programme where he spoke on a number of issues.
“The same way that we do passports, the same way that we acquire birth certificates, the same way that we acquire national documents, they have to have security mechanisms built in. Services of that type, universally, do not go to public tendering. You choose a qualified company that can provide you the type of service and protective mechanism that you are satisfied with, and you single source,” he added.
On March 10, the government hurriedly announced the virtual signing of the deal with the Germany- headquartered Veridos with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) acting as an intermediary. To date the Emirates’ financial role in the deal has not been defined. Moreso, information concerning the UAE’s Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al Maktoum’s financial role and the shareholding percentage of the UAE in the German-headquartered Veridos is still not public.
President Irfaan Ali had explained that the Govern-ment of Guyana sought the assistance of the UAE in October of 2021. “On an invitation of His Highness Sheik Amah al Maktoum, two internationally recognized industry leaders [a Swiss company] and Veridos presented their national ID system solutions. These solutions were evaluated by a technical team comprising members of the National Data Management Authority and the office of the National ICT Advisor. The evaluation criteria factored technology use, other government clients, as well as biometric security subsystems, and Veridos was the company in the estimation of the evaluators that presented the best solutions for Guyana,” he had explained.
Former Auditor General, Anand Goolsarran had weighed in, pointing out that while sole-sourcing is catered for under national emergencies and national security, and the awarding of the contract facilitated by UAE’s Sheikh was for electronic cards and therefore does not qualify. He still believes that the contract violates the Procure-ment Act.
He further stated that while the sole-sourcing section of the Act was used, the justification is flawed because the project cannot be classified as being one of national security.
“Section 3(2) of the Procurement Act states that the Act does not apply to procurement involving national defence or national security. Additionally, by Section 28 (e), where the procuring entity determines that Section 3(2) is applicable as a result of national security concerns, then it may consider the single-source method as the most appropriate method of procurement. Single-source procurement occurs mainly in relation to the following: a) where the goods or construction are available only from a particular supplier or contractor, or a particular supplier or contractor has exclusive rights with respect to the goods or construction, and no reasonable alternative or substitute exists; b) the services, by reason of their highly complex or specialized nature, are available from only one source; and c) owing to a catastrophic event, there is an urgent need for the goods, services or construction, making it impractical to use other methods of procurement because of the time involved in using those methods.”
“The Act does not define `national security’ and therefore we have to apply the ordinary meaning of the words. National security is defined as ‘the safety of a nation against threats such as terrorism, war, or espionage.’ It is concerned about foreign relations and protection from internal subversion, foreign aggression to terrorism. It can hardly be argued that the production of electronic ID cards is a matter of national security,” he added.
‘Some point and time’
Guyana’s Attorney General maintains that the card would fall under national security given its features and the sensitive personal and other data that would be updated on it. He said that in other countries, similar mechanisms are used to procure passports and residency cards. “That is how it is done all over the world. You ever see a government advertise publicly to buy passports? You think the American Government goes on the public market to procure passports or green cards or whatever important documents of that country are, or any other country in the world? These are services that understandably are procured differently from the other ordinary type of services,” he said.
And where there has been a call that the issue be discussed in parliament, Nandlall said that that he believes that when the issue of the funding comes to the fore in the House, the issue will be ventilated.
The Alliance for Change and the Guyana Human Rights Association have called on government to pause the proposed programme and to submit it to Parliament.
AFC’s Parliamentarian Cathy Hughes had pointed out that the planned US$34 million project did not “come to the parliament for the requisite discussion and scrutiny. These omissions are all too glaring to be accidental and therefore we can only conclude this is the disdain with which this government holds its citizens which it is supposed to serve.”
In a statement, the GHRA said that the signing of a pact for e-governance “without the framework legislation covering Data Protection being in place, is reckless in the extreme. Given the haste, absence of public consultation and threats to the integrity of personal information, not to mention the seeming illegality of sole-sourcing the project, the Guyana Human Rights Association … is calling for the project to be paused and submitted to Parliament”.
Nandlall maintained that government has complied with the laws of the country and a time will come when issues regarding the card could be heard in the National Assembly. “We have complied with the Procurement Act in respect to those types of services. That is why we are saying the allegation is misplaced,” he said.
“…Someone said we should take the contract to the parliament. The issue will be discussed in the parliament at some point in time because monies will have to come from the parliament to pay. So the matter will reach parliament. But I don’t know that the contract has to be taken to the Parliament. The contract has to be laid in the parliament at some point in time,” he added.
