Despite what has been represented to this newspaper as “a significant tightening up” of the procedures associated with the processing of tenders for state contracts, sources close to both the National Insurance Scheme and the Guyana Revenue Authority say that there are still cases of service providers who are significantly in arrears in their NIS and GRA payments who attempt to secure compliances. “Some contractors will stop at nothing to get hold of compliances without actually being compliant,” the NIS Source told Stabroek Business.
Meanwhile, a Finance Ministry source has confirmed that the National Procure-ment and Tender Administration Board has been reading the ‘riot act’ against bogus certificates of compliance appearing as part of tender submissions through a scrupulous verification process involving the NIS and the GRA.
Tenders for state contracts are required to include valid certificates of compliance from both the NIS and the GRA and submissions by contractors have been known to include bogus compliances, that is, either compliances that were outdated or else dates were altered. This newspaper understands that under the new system put in place more than year ago the Tender Board is required to verify the authenticity of each NIS and GRA compliance directly with the respective agencies. Additionally, Stabroek Business has learnt that the Tender Board now operates a three-tiered system for the inspection of bids under which the examination process is divided into an evaluation of applicants’ administrative, technical and financial criteria for being considered for the award of a tender. The administrative process seeks to determine whether the applicant has qualified in terms of submission of the required documents including Certificates of Compliance. The two remaining stages seek to evaluate the applicants’ technical capacity to effectively execute the contract as well as the financial capacity to undertake the project. Stabroek Business understands that some tenders still fall at the first hurdle as a result of the absence of valid compliances.
A source in one of the two compliance-issuing agencies told Stabroek Business that evidence of a tightening up at the level of the Tender Board does not necessarily provide “a real indication that overall, the problem has been resolved. We are talking about a system that is always in danger of being corrupted. It may, for example, be entirely possible not to be compliant and still secure a certificate,” the source said.
According to the source there was “clear evidence at the level of the Tender Board” of a determination to remove dishonest practices from the tender process. “While that may well be the case among officers at the NIS and the GRA as well there are always people who are prepared to offer blandishments and those who are prepared to accept. That makes the system vulnerable. In the past there has been a problem with compliances that were paid for. The problem with those is that at face value they are altogether valid since there is no forgery and the date is a valid one. The Tender Board had no way of determining whether or not the holder of that certificate was actually compliant or otherwise,” the source said.
In the past in a few known cases including one on which this newspaper reported, contractors who have submitted forged certificates of compliance had been awarded tenders. In the case on which this newspaper reported the contractor who is based in Berbice and was seeking to execute a building contract in Linden had the award revoked after it was discovered that he had submitted a forged certificate of compliance.