Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jul 18, 2017 News
By Abena Rockcliffe-Campbell
Guyana’s Procurement Act of 2003 needs to be strengthened. Like any other law, it has loopholes that have become apparent over the years. But the debate now seems to be whether those loopholes were engineered or not.
As for former Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, he refused to admit that the Act has “engineered loopholes.”
He did admit that the Act can benefit from improvement in the areas of securing the interest of the government specifically as it relates to quality assurance. Nandlall said that penalties should be added to the Act for engineers who collude with contractors to shortchange the country.
Nandlall made these comments yesterday during an interview with Kaieteur News. His comments came in response to statements by Professor Afra Raymond.
Professor Raymond is a Trinidadian expert who was a panelist on the recently concluded oil and gas symposium hosted by the Guyana Oil and Gas Association (GOGA) in collaboration with the Caribbean Institute of Forensic Accounting (CIFA).
Professor Raymond was critical of Guyana’s Procurement Act of 2003, which he said seemingly contains “engineered loopholes” in addition to antiquated provisions that allow for a situation to be taken advantage of by corrupt persons.
According to Professor Raymond, the Procurement Act of 2003 allows Government to enter into government to government arrangements outside of the ambit of the procurement laws for international agreements. He said that this is a major loophole.
Speaking to the statement made about “engineered loopholes” Nandlall responded, “As far as I can recall, the Procurement Act which was enacted in Guyana was, at the time, one of the most modern of the international models. It was the most modern in the Caribbean and in many respects it still remains one of the more advanced legislation of its type in the Caribbean.”
He continued, “But that does not mean that (the Act) does not have loopholes, which with the passage of time, and experience are now apparent.”
Nandlall pointed out that no legislation is ever perfect. He said that one has to use experience and look at how the legislation has worked over a given period in order to identify shortcomings if any and take corrective measures. “But I do not subscribe to the view that there were engineered loopholes.”
Nandlall said, “In terms of government to government transactions these are not normally the subject of procurement matters.” However, the former Attorney General said that there are indeed some instances where procurement may be involved in government to government arrangement.
Nandlall pointed to the arrangement between Guyana and the India Exim Bank which is wholly owned by the Government of India. He said even in that case “there was a level of competitive procurement done.”
Nandlall said that when the loan from the Indian Exim Bank was obtained for the Specialty Hospital project there was an “element of public procurement.” He said that the bank had shortlisted a number of contractors that were given to the government of Guyana on the condition that those on the list would then compete for the contract in accordance with Guyana’s procurement laws and processes.
“But certainly there are some loopholes that can be plugged.”
Pointing to one such hole, Nandlall said that consultants or engineers who are supposed to represent the government’s interest in projects are sometimes found “wanting” in their assessment of work done.
Nandlall said that such eventualities lend to the view that there may be collusion between the engineer and the contractor. “So you have substandard work being passed as meeting standard requirement or you have the engineer or consultant agreeing to grant variations to the contract. The variations may subsequently discovered not to be in the best interest of the state whose interest the engineer should have been representing. That is one aspect of our procurement law that needs strengthening.”
The former Attorney General said that this can be addressed by imposing serious penalties on the contractors, consultants and persons functioning in those capacities.
Nandlall also spoke about aspects of the Procurement Act that speak to evaluators and said that they need to be reviewed. This is so that more technically sound persons “and persons of sound integrity and independence can serve as evaluators. What we have are ordinary public servants, some of whom are not suitably qualified, functioning in those capacities.”
Nandlall pointed to the ambiguity in the Act with regard to Cabinet’s role in the procurement process when there is a functioning Public Procurement Commission (PPC).
He said that the provisions in the Act relating to this issue are currently left to interpretation. “That should be put to rest once and for all, because the intention obviously was to end Cabinet’s involvement upon the establishment of a procurement commission.”
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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