Dear Editor,
There are six licensed electricians in Lethem. For some time now most maintenance and small contracts for publicly funded electrical works have been given to one particular electrician.
And since this year’s works contracts have been awarded by the Regional administration, this same electrician has been recommended to contractors to carry out the electrical part of the works.
The contract documents state that any certified electrician can be employed by contractors. But contractors are worried that fault will be found on completion if the recommended electrician is not employed, and they will not be paid.
Also a particular official is selling contractors power tools and electrical equipment, including solar panels, inverters and pumps. Contractors feel they must purchase goods supplied by the official so as to be assured their completed project will be certified for payment, and they will be awarded more contracts next year. Qualified and licensed electricians who have pointed out that the Region’s contracts contain specifications and bills of quantities far more expensive than technically required for the contract purpose, have been told the projects must proceed with purchase of the specified equipment, without questioning the electrical design, however excessive it might be.
In the case of solar-powered water pumps, not only are the contractors having to buy equipment far more expensive than appropriate for the shallow wells in the Region, but also, as happened last year, a technician was brought from Georgetown to do installation work that Lethem licensed electricians are quite capable of. But the contractors feel they have to pay the unnecessary outsider, as well as purchase equipment inappropriate to the projects, again to ensure their projects are passed for payment.
These facts may be news to you, Editor, but Lethem people are not blind. Misuse of public office will always be exposed, and bring all public administration into disrepute. Overspending of scarce public funds, for purposes of dishonest diversion, is rampant in many fields besides the electrical, and neither the Regional administration nor anyone else, from the Parliament down, is doing anything to stop it.
After hearing and reading similar stories from across Guyana, I am not confident that any official solution will be found.
But one thing is quite certain. Citizens will not stand idly by and allow just anyone to come into Lethem and take the bread out of their mouths.
Yours faithfully,
Patrick Fitzpatrick
Licensed Electrician
