-wants restructuring of NPTAB
The Alliance For Change (AFC) on Friday called for the resignation of the government nominees on the procurement commission over their failure to sanction a pump station contract to Tepui Inc and it also called for a restructuring of the national tender board.
The award of the Belle Vue pump station contract to Tepui Inc despite the fact that it had no construction experience with such a project has led to denunciations and the decision of the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) on Tuesday not to take decisive action to end the contract has raised serious concerns.
In its defence, the PPC in its Summary of Findings said that it has no powers to terminate a contract that has already been concluded.
During his party’s media conference held virtually, AFC Leader Khemraj Ramjattan lashed out at the government-appointed commissioners over the $865 million contract.
“The AFC regards the recent majority recommendation of the PPC, after the complaint by its Executive member and Parliamen-tarian Mr David Patterson, as shamelessly objectionable, unfair and yet another knockdown of a guardrail of our fragile democracy”, he declared.
He told the press that all five Commissioners agreed that Tepui had failed on the evaluation criteria.
“Tepui’s bid failed grievously on every evaluation criteria as found unanimously by 5 Com-missioners”, the AFC Leader stated.
Ramjattan said that his party when examining the PPC’s Summary of Findings found it amazing that a bid which did not meet any of the evaluation criteria could have been passed by the Evaluation Committee at the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) and given a no-objection by Cabinet.
The party’s leader said “The AFC does not know the names of the members of the Evaluation Commit-tee. However, their names must not be an official secret. The public has a right to know who they are. The AFC is aware that the head of NPTAB is Mr. Tarachand Balgobin, who has a senior advisory role at the Ministry of Finance as Deputy National Authorising Officer and head of its Public Invest-ment Unit. A conflict of interest is most noticeable here. Also, it is well known that Tepui’s owner (Mikhail Rodrigues) is a close friend of Vice President Jagdeo. There is an undoubted conflict of interests and relationships here that mattered more than the merits of the Tepui bid”.
Ramjattan disclosed that the Summary of Findings approved by the PPC was not unanimous. The PPC comprises three commissioner nominated by the government and two by the opposition.
He noted that what added the icing on the cake was when the commission noted that it could not propose any remedial action due to the privity of contract.
“This kind of misconceived `lenience’ ought to have come only from the interested parties who want to see the award go to a friend. It should never have come from a constitutional body which was fought long and hard for to be a check and balance against executive lawlessness in procurement matters”, Ramjattan declared.
He was of the view that the legal device of privity of contract (by the three government-nominated Commissioners Joel Bhagwandin, Rajnarine Singh and Chairperson Pauline Chase) reflects poorly on the trustworthiness of the commission.
Ramjattan said that this is an abdication of the duties by the three commissioners as they are duty- bound in protecting the public purse and preventing the chances of fraud and corruption in procurement matters.
“They abandoned their power under article 212 AA (1)(h) and (i) which provides explicitly that they investigate complaints, and in cases of irregularity and mismanagement and “to propose remedial action”, Ramjattan argued.
“Additionally, to use another device that the complaint was not brought by any competing bidder, but a civic-minded citizen, to deliberately avoid the remedy of voiding the award is an affront to the rule of law. By doing and rationalising as they did, those three Commissioners being so excessively deferential became an arm of the Executive, rather than a check and balance as was intended by the framers of the Constitution. They heeded not the prescription of the Supreme law of the land, but found succour in common law precepts of privity of contract and improper party to legalize illegality”, Ramjattan argued.
“The AFC feels that this sort of rationalisation, and exposition of reasons, demands the immediate resignation of those three Commissioners. Addition-ally, NPTAB must be reconstituted. The irony of it all is that they are being paid hundreds of millions to grant a disqualified tenderer/bidder an $865 million contract. This certainly disqualifies them”, he thundered.
The Alliance For Change Leader also alluded to two recommendations made by Commis-sioner Dianna Rajcumar (nominated by the opposition) which stated that it was incomprehensible that NPTAB recommended such a flawed contract award and which was accepted by the procuring entity.
Rajcumar in her recommendations noted that “measures should now be taken by NPTAB and NDIA (National Drainage and Irrigation Authority) to deem the bidder non-responsive.
She said that based on an analysis of the Sum-mary of Findings by the PPC, the body did not give a definitive position and anyone who reads the report could conclude that the commission agreed with the flawed process surrounding the bidding process.
“Lastly the Summary of Findings seems to take a partisan position on supporting the justification by the evaluation committee in referencing the projects done under the previous administration, as an impartial body, no reference should be made to such, I would request that the reference to past contract awards be removed since inclusion can appear as if the PPC will accept any award once it is proven that same flawed process was done by the previous NPTAB”, the PPC commissioner posited.
She continued “It is clear that the Tepui contract which was awarded was not properly followed in alignment with the procurement process and the media has constantly exposed this, which came out in the investigation”.
In its summary of findings issued on Tuesday, six months after a complaint by MP Patterson, the PPC recommended that “Evaluators must strictly abide with the express terms of the Evaluation Criteria for the tender being evaluated”. The PPC pointed out that the previous commission had said the Evaluation Committee should not consider evaluation criteria not outlined in the tender documents.
The PPC’s summary of findings is replete with examples of the Evaluation Committee of the NPTAB bending over backwards to justify not strictly applying the evaluation criteria to Tepui’s bid. One of the key requirements was for Tepui to have had prior experience with a project similar to a pump station. It did not have this and readily admitted it.
However, when questioned by the PPC, the NPTAB said that the work done by Tepui in less than a year it was in existence was similar to what was required for a pump station.
Tepui also did not provide a bank line of credit. It provided a line of credit issued by Puran Bros. Later a letter of credit issued by Caricom General Insurance Company also appeared but this also was ineligible.
Tepui did not submit – as required – an audited financial statement as it was not in existence for a year.
In terms of equipment requirements, Tepui, the summary of findings said, did not show evidence of three pieces of equipment.
It also fell short of its bid security requirement.
