It is unclear how much ‘bang for the buck’ Government is getting by the creation and use of its e-procure website since for the most part it is woefully out of date and has none of the current advertisements featured in the Guyana Chronicle.
A visit to the Government’s E-Procure website at http://www.eprocure.gov.gy/ reveals that there is little effort at updates to the online portal, meant to be a hub for persons to see all requests for proposals, invitation for bids to supply goods and services and vacancies. Many of the posts on the site are dated 2011.
Bidders for government contracts had expressed concerns in the past that they would miss notifications of contracts if there was not adequate coverage in the print media or online. They had also argued that the uneven publicizing of contracts works in favour of some bidders. The eprocure website was meant to have all of the ads that are being run in the Guyana Chronicle but this is not the case.
What this newspaper found is that in almost every instance, there is a mismatch between what appears in the press and what is posted on the website. While many Government advertisements feature prominently in the Guyana Chronicle, they are not correspondingly placed on the website.
On Tuesday, the Guyana Chronicle featured an advertisement by the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development requesting bids for the cleanup and final closure of the Timehri dumpsite as part of an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) funded solid waste management project. However, a check under ‘Procurement of Works’ for Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development showed a blank page.
Guyana Water Inc on Tuesday had an advertisement for vacancies for six plant operator positions, 10 craftsmen positions and two production and distribution supervisor positions. There was another advertisement in the Guyana Chronicle for vacancies at GWI for meter readers and water service inspectors. However, when this newspaper visited the vacancies page for GWI on the website, it was blank.
Wednesday’s Guyana Chronicle featured an advertisement for vacancies in the Ministry of Home Affairs for Neighbourhood Police, with the deadline for submission of applications being February 22, 2013.
The website’s vacancies page for the Ministry of Home Affairs however was blank.
Wednesday’s Chronicle also featured an ad for a vacancy for a chemist and another ad for a laboratory technician both at the Pesticide and Toxic Chemicals Control Board under the Ministry of Agriculture however the corresponding page on the website did not have the advertisement posted.
It had instead one vacancy advertisement for a tractor driver for the Guyana Livestock Development Authority which was dated August 30, 2011 at 14:49 hours.
Wednesday’s Chronicle featured an advertisement for invitation of bids for site clearance works for a generating plant and storage for Guyana Power and Light’s 26 megawatt Wartsila generation plant project at Vreed-en-Hoop West Bank Demerara. However, GPL’s works page on the e-procure site was blank.
The National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) had an advertisement under the Ministry of Agriculture for the construction of a drainage pump station at Enterprise, East Coast Demerara, and for the operating, servicing and remedial works at the East Demerara Water Conservancy. The ad which appeared in Wednesday’s edition of the Guyana Chronicle even invites potential bidders to attend a pre-bid meeting on Tuesday January 22, 2013 at 10:00 hours. There was no corresponding advertisement on the e-procure website.
While many advertisements for vacancies appear in the Chronicle for the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment, there is no page for this Ministry on the e-procure website, even after one year of it being in existence.
There is an advertisement in the Chronicle requesting a project manager under the Office of the President to support the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS). However this ad was not featured on the Office of the President Vacancies page on the e-procure website.
The Ministry of Local Government on Wednesday had a vacancy advertisement for a national country coordinator for a Canadian-funded Caribbean Local Economic Development Program. But again the Local Government vacancies page on the e-procure website had nothing on it.
An ad for a consultancy under the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce’s Support for Competitiveness Programme did not appear on the Tourism Ministry’s vacancy section of the website.
The Ministry of Home Affairs also had an advertisement for traffic wardens but the vacancies page on the website for the Ministry was blank.
Two Sundays ago, GWI ran an advertisement in the Guyana Chronicle inviting tenders for procurement of works in 10 lots. However the procurement of works page for GWI on the website was blank.
The Ministry of Home Affairs had a two-page spread for vacancies in a number of positions including Head – Strategic Management Department; Team Leader – Strategic Management Department; Strategic Planning Officer; Research Officer; Change Facilitation Officer; Change Communication Officer; Project Coordinator; Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator; Risk Management Officer and Divisional Assistant. But as was in the previous cases, the relevant section of the e-procure website did not have this advertisement posted.
This newspaper did observe that the website has some current ads that are not featured in the Chronicle.
Government in August 2010 stated that it was moving away from the traditional and more expensive means of advertising in the print media and taking advantage of the transformation in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector.
“Our intention is to migrate, as much as possible, definitely more and more… government ads and government notices into the electronic world,” Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon had said at a post-Cabinet press briefing. “It is most unlikely that those benefits that so easily accrue from the investments in ICT, we would overlook them, because of the utterances of those who insist that there is something devious and unprincipled about what we are doing,” he added.
He was at the time responding to a question from this newspaper about the future of state advertisements in the print media, following the establishment of the website. Asked specifically about the placement of advertisements in the Guyana Chronicle, Luncheon said advertisements in the print media will not be totally ruled out.
“This is a cultural thing. Quite a bit of those who advertise have had longstanding engagements–financial, nostalgic and otherwise–with various print media houses,” he said. “And then some categories of notices, whether on the basis of existing legislation or the [explicit] desire of those who are placing the ads for it to appear in the print media. And there is enough room, in the system, to contemplate those instances that would be used to support ads, notices in the print media,” he added.
The eprocure website was seen by some media houses as a ruse by the government to deny them state advertising.