Procurement blunders

Some of the procurement bloopers presided over by the current administration just couldn’t be made up. An “emergency” purchase of Closed Circuit Televisions (CCTV) under the Ministry of the Presidency is still to be delivered 17 months after it was ordered for no less than the National Intelligence Centre. How has the centre of intelligence gathering managed without this “emergency” purchase? It now transpires that the California-based supplier of the CCTV has declared bankruptcy. The name of the company? Moonblink. The company probably blinked at a key moment or vanished in the blink of an eye. To compound matters, there was no bond attached to this contract to cover eventualities like bankruptcy. This contract was one of those approved under the APNU+AFC government and it exhibits several of the flaws common under the previous administration. Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of the Presidency, Abena Moore was left to defend the contract before the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament last Monday

Moore stated that it was not the first time that the ministry had dealt with the contractor. The entities were said to have had a relationship spanning approximately six years. The Minister of State Joseph Harmon has been engaged to assist in the matter, and he is currently in talks with the Minister of Legal Affairs. Ms Moore’s explanation notwithstanding, it is unacceptable that there was no bond attached to the contract and this lapse evaded the scrutiny of the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB), its evaluation committee and Cabinet. Too many contracts have been cleared without performance bonds. It is also baffling that for relatively small purchases of ordinary equipment that recourse was sought to a company all the way in California considering transportation costs and possible complications in transacting business from such a distance. The NPTAB recently advertised for evaluators and there is definitely a need for the shaking up of this pool as has been argued before in these columns.

The same session of the PAC also heard about a transaction for the purchase of a vehicle for Prime Minister Nagamootoo. The Toyota Land Cruiser Station Wagon GX was sole-sourced from Beharry Automotive Limited (BAL) at a price of $13.8m and even though the arrangement was for 50% payment on firm order with the remainder to be paid on delivery, the full amount was paid in January 2016. Not only was the full amount paid but two cheques were written to the full value of the order and paid over, a clear sign of procurement confusion in the President’s own ministry. To rub salt into the wound, BAL did not deliver the vehicle for around eight months because of what was described as back and forth correspondence between the ministry and the supplier.

This led MP Juan Edghill to quite properly

query the sole-sourcing considering the length of time it took to deliver the vehicle and the prospect that open tendering could have yielded a better outcome. The transaction moved him to say: “If procurement practices at the Ministry of the Presidency is in this fashion, we’re setting a bad example for the country, very bad example. Every minister and every agency could buy from who they want to, when they want to, violating procurement laws, locking out other competitive bidders, and you know why we have competitive bidding? We are not sure that we got the best price.”

The truth is that two years into the life of this administration it has evidently not taken its admonition on procurement, when in opposition, to heart. There are any number of transactions since May 2015 which call into question whether the Ministry of the Presidency, the Ministry of Finance and the NPTAB recognise the need for strict propriety in the manner in which taxpayers’ money is expended. President Granger and his leading ministers, while in the opposition had very firm views about the need for probity in the gigantic procurement sector. His government has thus far failed this test.

Leading this cavalcade of transgressions is the stupendous $605m emergency expenditure by the Georgetown Public Hospital at the behest of Minister of Public Health Volda Lawrence. No matter how it is twisted and turned, this was the grossest violation of the procurement law for years and the government and the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) will face a serious challenge to prevent further deterioration of confidence in the procurement system. The verdict of the PPC in particular is awaited on this transaction.

There are other notable cases of procurement failings. While the collapse of the base of the Palmyra monument pertained to a relatively small contract, there could have been serious consequences for persons working on the site and a series of questions remain about how the contractor was chosen, whether he had the requisite skills and whether the works were supervised prior to the collapse. These questions are still to be answered by the government yet work has resumed on the base. This is either the height of arrogance or recklessness.

A settlement is still to be arrived at in relation to the flawed evaluation of the juice contract for the schools’ feeding programme. The process has been left in the netherworld and there has been a significant impact on the complainant, DDL, another example of injudicious and questionable work in the procurement system.

The APNU+AFC government must ensure that even amid its hypocrisy it is making valiant efforts to right the system.