Officials from the Region 3 administration came under intense scrutiny yesterday from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament after they were unable to properly account for a quantity of wooden piles that had been seized from a defaulting contractor back in 2005.
The contractor in question defaulted in the construction of a bridge at Zeeburg, East Bank Essequibo after being given a mobilization advance of $458,620. In response to queries by the Auditor General, the region’s administration said that it had confiscated some of the piles that were originally to be used for the bridge and utilized them elsewhere. The piles that were not used in other projects were taken to the region’s storage facility.
However, yesterday, Acting Regional Executive Officer (REO) Paul Ramrattan was unable to say how many piles had been acquired and utilized by the region. Ramrattan, who has been serving in the post for the past 11 months, was quizzed intensely by PAC Chairperson PNCR-1G MP Volda Lawrence as the 2009 Auditor General Report was being examined.
With no details coming from Ramrattan regarding the contractor, quantity of piles confiscated and whether the contractor had a bond, Lawrence became agitated.
“You come to Public Accounts Committee today…, you come before us with all of your staff, you can’t tell us who is the contractor, you can’t tell us whether there was a bond…you can’t give us the value,” she observed. She continued: “You tell us in your comment how you confiscated piles, you cannot tell us how many piles you confiscated, you tell us that some went to the compound and some went to another project, you cannot tell us how many entered the compound, you cannot tell us how many went to the other project and which other project. You can’t tell us anything.”
Lawrence went further to suggest that the region may have been trying to protect the contractor. “I hope I am wrong to have the perception that the region is trying to shelter this contractor because that is the perception I am getting here that this person is being sheltered,” she said.
The PAC has given the region up to Monday to provide a detailed response on the matter. Local Government Permanent Secretary Nigel Dharamlall, who was also present yesterday, asked that the details regarding the species of the wood, and their dimensions be provided.
The region’s administration was also rapped for the little progress that had been made in recovering some $6.6 million overpaid to contractors from 2005-2008, and PPP/C MP Bibi Shadick suggested a change in approach.
Instead of writing letters to the defaulting contractors, Shadick suggested bilateral engagements that would appeal “to their sense of nationalism and patriotism”. When it had been suggested that the region seek legal advice to solve the issue, Shadick noted that in cases where the region has overpaid contractors, it has no chance of winning a court case, since it had to first sign a document indicating the work was completed before paying the contractor. “We can’t go to the court to ask for money from this man, to get a judgement on the basis of the fact we paid him too much money because we [the region] had to verify what he did before he was paid,” she said.
At one point during the proceedings, Ramrattan explained that the region had attempted to reach a defaulting contractor but that they did not have an address for the person. This irked Finance Secretary Neermal Rekha who said that this was “a mockery” of the process. According to him, “when an accounting officer enters into a contract with a contractor, he’ll have to have all the addresses, all the details, I don’t understand why we come to PAC and ask for legal advice and ask the PAC for addresses. I think we are making a mockery of the system,” he said.
