Acting Regional Executive Officer (REO) of Region 2 Sunil Singh and the region’s Superintendent of Works and Engineer are to reappear before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on May 30, after failing to adequately provide details on $15.976M overpaid to contractors during the period 2004 to 2008.
Singh, who assumed office in late 2008, and a team of regional officials appeared before the PAC on Monday to be questioned on matters raised in the 2009 Auditor General report. Danesh Mohan, the Superintendent of Works for the building Section, David Sultan, the Acting Superintendent of Works for Roads and the Engineer Shameshwar Brijmohan were part of the region’s team.
The Auditor General’s report had said that the regional administration had still not recovered amounts totalling $15.976M, overpaid to contractors during the years 2004 to 2008, for the construction and rehabilitation of buildings and roads.
However, when questioned by the PAC, Singh said that some cases that were classified as overpayments were not really so, since the contractors had done additional works on some projects. Questioned about construction associated with the Good Hope Nursery School, Singh said after the contractor had indicated to the region that some additional work had been done, regional officials went to the site and verified it. However, after being questioned by AFC MP David Patterson and other members of the committee, Singh said that the contractor still owed the region some money. The PAC also queried why the document detailing the additional work was not signed by the Engineer and the Superintendent of Works, even after they cleared the project. Both Mohan and Brijmohan admitted to the PAC that they were at fault.
Singh further explained that the school was actually one building but that “in construction the toilet was extended out of the building.” There was no documentation to show that the contractors were given permission to put the toilet outside of the building, Singh said.
The explanations given by the officials upset PAC Chairperson Volda Lawrence. “I’m still concerned about this thing here. You see I am having a different perception to what you’re saying because you’re telling me that the contractor did this, your persons checked it,” the PNCR-1G MP said. “No mind they didn’t see the concrete floor that the man did before, and they didn’t see the roof, they didn’t see a whole wall of 405 squared feet, they didn’t see that. They didn’t see the man lay 242 blocks… it had to take them so many years to go back for the man [to] tell them he did this and there is nothing in your office, according to you, to say this was asked of the man to be done,” she continued. She also told the regional team that she was puzzled that the two persons checking the work would not see it necessary to sign and date the document.
Lawrence questioned whether this was the way business was conducted in the region. “This region has always had problems with capital works,” Lawrence remarked at one point, while reminding Singh of his earlier promise to address the issue.
In another case where the contractor reportedly completed the terms of his contract, Mohan told the PAC that he had not verified this himself but had gotten word from the head teacher that the additional work had been done. Mohan explained that given the location of the school, it was not easy to get there. He told the PAC that he was waiting until the team from the Auditor General’s Office arrived to travel down to the site and to sign off the contract as completed.
In relation to another matter, Singh said that a total of $125,000 was deducted from the amount owed by a contractor, since the region had used this amount in materials originally belonging to the contractor to complete the project. Patterson told Singh that this was not such a simple matter since the region would have had to spend additional resources to complete the project. Singh later agreed that the region would have spent more than had been budgeted for the project. When asked why a waiver had not been sought, Singh said he did not view the matter the same way.
Meanwhile Finance Secretary Neermal Rekha expressed concerns about several issues raised. “If a region is asking a contractor to go put on doors and windows and so on… are we designing buildings without doors and windows?” he asked. “In the case of all these overpayments, I am sure that these overpayments will affect the budget. And I would then ask, where is this region getting the money in the budget to pay?” he continued. “Or is it that payments are based on not certificate or some agreement? Because if they were made on the certificate, certainly you won’t have these big overpayments,” he suggested.
Acting Auditor General Deodat Sharma noted that since Singh assumed office the number of overpayments on contracts has been reduced significantly. According to Sharma, there was only one case of overpayment in 2009, and the sum of $42,000 was repaid.
