Amid charges by the government that the Indian firm Surendra Engineering Company Limited (SECL) has engaged in fraud in relation to the $3.6 billion Specialty Hospital project, the main opposition APNU is calling for the immediate review of all ongoing and pending contracts with the company.
APNU executive member Dr Rupert Roopnaraine told Stabroek News that after government revealed that it would terminate the contract for the construction of the Speciality Hospital “it would be unthinkable that they (the government) will be continuing with any arrangement with this company. That is an enormous mistake.”
Last Tuesday, the Donald Ramotar administration announced that the contract for the controversial US$18 million Specialty Hospital at Liliendaal would be terminated and it would initiate legal action against SECL for fraud and to recover public funds. While Surendra has rejected the charges of fraud as baseless, and accused the administration of seeking to back out of its commitments to the specialty hospital project after being responsible for the stoppage of work, government has since asked the Guyana Police Force to begin criminal investigations.
“If there is going to be a complete re-examination of all the details to Surendra and the Speciality Hospital then this investigation must not stop at the borders of the hospital, but continue to re-examine the pump contract,” Roopnaraine told Stabroek News. Surendra has an $820 million contract for the supply of 14 flood relief pumps, which remains unfulfilled since 2011.
The APNU chairman said that while Parliament is still in recess, APNU can publicly support the need to investigate and terminate outstanding contracts with Surendra. According to him, the revelation of Surendra’s fraudulent activity came as no surprise as issues were raised in the past. Roopnaraine was speaking about the still unknown ties between SECL and the Guyana government with the latter being accused of favouring the former for multiple multi-million dollar projects.
APNU shadow finance minister Carl Greenidge, in a letter to Stabroek News last week also called for an investigation into Surendra’s other contracts. He had noted that some weeks ago, the press had raised a red flag regarding the location and manner of acquisition or indeed the existence of the pumps. “It goes without saying that the other Surendra contracts such as those for these irrigation pumps, should also be investigated and possibly terminated. I, as Chairman of the PAC, followed up fresh press revelations regarding the pumps, by calling on the Auditor General to undertake a special investigation into it. He undertook to report on it to the PAC in his 2013 report which is due to be presented in October. I look forward to that report,” Greenidge said. He called on the government to remove the Minister of Health and the Minister of Finance, “both of whom sanctioned and oversaw this farce.”
Roopnaraine told Stabroek News that four years since the initial contract was signed between Guyana and Surendra, very little progress has been made in relation to the acquisition and installation of the 14 pumps. The bulk of the work for the pump contract has been done within the last year and a half with over $300 million projected to be spent this year on the completion of eight pump stations, a year after the contract for the supply of the pumps ended.
Recently, a $50 million pump was commissioned at Lima along the Essequibo Coast and this was said to be one of the eight fixed pumps. In June, a $265 million pump and pump station was commissioned at Patentia, West Bank Demerara and it was promoted as being one of the eight pumps. However Agriculture Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy subsequently disclosed to the Parliamentary Sectoral Committee on Natural Resources that this was not the case. Adding to the controversy, Ramsammy revealed that the pump was provided by the same company that is supplying the equipment to Surendra.
Surendra was originally awarded the contract in 2011 in a deal that was financed by India. The deal had been under scrutiny but the government refused to budge even in the face of it being reported that the company had little experience in the area.
Stabroek News reached out to Ramsammy seeking clarification on where the contract for the pumps now stands following the fraud allegations, but the minister did not respond.
Ramsammy had previously stated locations for the Surendra pumps which overlapped with those under an $11 billion National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) project for additional drainage structures including rehabilitation and construction of pump stations with $1.9 billion left to be spent in 2014. While the initiatives are similar, neither enterprise was to be tied to the other.
During the Natural Resources committee meeting, APNU MP Joseph Harmon questioned where the fixed Surendra pumps would be located and Ramsammy provided eight locations: Paradise/Enterprise, Pine Ground, Canal No 1, Windsor Forest, Rose Hall, Gangaram/Eversham, No 43 village and Lima. Ramsammy had previously provided a list of some other locations including: Number 19 Village, Berbice; Albion, Corentyne; Rose Hall, Canje; Bengal, Corentyne; Crabwood Creek, Corentyne and Black Bush Polder, Corentyne.
The minister’s revelations did little to clarify where exactly the 14 pumps are going to be placed, the total cost and whether they have been completely outfitted by Surendra. Critics have said that Surendra should not have been awarded this contract as there were other bidders better equipped to execute this project.
If Ramsammy’s most recent list of the eight sites is accurate, then none of the pumps were installed prior to this year, leaving issues with the funding outstanding. Pumps have been installed at Rose Hall and Lima. Speaking to Stabroek News during the commissioning of the Patentia pump about where the Surendra pumps were currently installed and operating, head of the NDIA, Lionel Wordsworth had stated that “at the moment there is installation taking place in Canje, down at (No.) 66 (Village) and at Paradise installation and very shortly we will do installation at Bagotville.”
The government’s termination of one contract with SECL has reinforced the call for the establishment of the Public Procurement Commission. Stabroek News had raised the issue earlier in August following the revelation that the Patentia pump was in fact not one of the Surendra pumps.
Stabroek News was told that government has already paid over more than $750 million to the company for mobilisation works on the specialty hospital and it was not until a complaint was made by a local contractor that it began investigating the company.
