Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
Aug 25, 2016 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
A Minister has learnt a lesson. So he says!
There are people in Guyana who are keen to ensure that he is taught a lesson: that he is punished for the controversial contract that was signed by his Ministry for the rental of a bond located on Sussex Street. The deal is now being referred to as ‘Bondgate.’
A Cabinet sub-committee which examined the contract has reportedly asked the Minister to apologize to the National Assembly. This is, no doubt, intended to avoid the introduction by the Opposition of a motion to debate whether the Minister should be sent to the Committee of Privileges of the National Assembly, for the answers he gave to the National Assembly when he, the Minister, was being questioned on the bond deal.
The opposition does not have a majority in the National Assembly, and therefore cannot succeed in having any motion passed to place the matter before the Committee of Privileges. But the mere attempt by the opposition will cause a vote to be taken, and this can be embarrassing to the government, since it may appear to be a case of suppressing transparency
Even in the absence of such a debate or motion, the Speaker can sanction the Minister if he is of the view that the Minister has misrepresented facts to the National Assembly. The government may be hoping to avoid both scenarios by simply asking the Minister to apologize.
The Minister should not be facing the sort of pressure that he is facing. After all, he said that he has learnt a lesson. But is he acting on that lesson?
If the Minister took positions based on what he was told by his senior functionaries within the Ministry of Public Health, it is for the Minister to indicate just who misled him on this matter. The Minister should not be taking all the blame if he does not know the owner of the building which was the subject of the rental contract for storing medicines and other health supplies, or if he had nothing to do with the deal, or if he was misled.
If the Minister of Health was not given the correct information or was not privy to all the details about the bond and whether drugs were being stored there; and if this led to the problems with his answers to the National Assembly, the Minister, instead of learning a lesson, needs to make an example out of the person who may not have been forthcoming to him.
If the full facts were not known to the Minister at the time he was cross-examined by the opposition members of the National Assembly, then it is more than likely that the full facts were also not known to Cabinet when it approved of the deal. It is hard to imagine that Cabinet would approve of the contract price for the rental of the Sussex Street bond, if they had a comparison before them as to the pricing per square foot of the New GPC bond as compared to the Sussex Street facility. Cabinet therefore may have been in the same position as the National Assembly in terms of full disclosure.
The Minister therefore needs to expose just who had incorrectly advised him. He needs to call names and to indicate whether the person or persons deliberately misinformed or did not fully inform him about the deal.
He needs to state who signed the contract. He needs to indicate how the Ministry knew about this facility, who introduced them to this bond, and how the person knew that the government needed additional storage. He also needs to take the media on a tour of the government bond at Diamond so that they can see the desperate need for additional space.
There is another aspect to the matter. Why is Cabinet still giving its no-objection to contracts? The APNU+AFC coalition said that it would have discontinued this practice. So, regardless of whether the Public Procurement Commission was in place, there is no reason why Cabinet should be doing what the APNU+AFC, when it was in opposition, said it would discontinue.
There is no conceivable reason why the Cabinet should be using its precious hours to have to go through contracts to grant no-objections. There is a new Tender Board in place, one put there by the new government. So why not let the Tenders be dealt there and there alone, have the Bid Protest Committee in place, and deny Cabinet a role in approving contracts?
The Minister may have learnt his lesson, but Cabinet does not seem to have learnt its own.
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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