When objectively evaluated, the only conclusion that can be drawn from the unceremonious bust up between the Guyana Government and the Indian company Surendra is that the Ramotar administration doesn’t understand the importance of good business.
The Surendra scandal epitomizes all that has gone wrong with governance in this country at the level of the executive and which poor example was lifted wholesale by President Ramotar from his predecessor. However one might twist it and turn it, Surendra should never have been selected to construct the US$18M specialty hospital. It had no experience to speak of in hospital construction and compared to some of the other bids which were submitted to the procurement board should not even have been on the radar. However, the government steadfastly defended Surendra and given the control that it has over the evaluation committees that review bids submitted to the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) it is small wonder that companies like Surendra have been able to steamroller the competition.
Having denied the country the opportunity of having a Public Procurement Commission for more than a decade, the PPP/C has now managed on its own to demolish the standing of the NPTAB. This Surendra decision and the scandalous handling of bids for the prequalification of drug suppliers to the national health system should lead to a revamping of the membership of the NPTAB evaluation committees.
Citizens would be perfectly in order to ask who in this government or the previous one has been championing the fortunes of Surendra and what the price of such squiring might have been. Aside from the heavily underutilized US$12.5M Enmore packaging plant which it constructed and at which a worker was killed following an explosion, Surendra was also favoured for the US$4M pumps supply project which is still to be properly accounted for by the Ministry of Agriculture and its National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA). Were it not for howls of protest, Surendra might have today been ensconced in the management of the deeply troubled Skeldon sugar factory and the Enmore factory. But it was its bewildering selection as the specialty hospital contractor that has shaken the company’s bond with the government and which may possibly lead to further damning allegations.
While Surendra is now being accused of flashing a fake bond from the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago, it is mystifying why a company that has functioned here since 2009 in major contracts would engage in this behaviour now. Other pundits have suggested that the fraying of the relationship with Surendra may have had much to do with the likelihood that the Indian Parliament was being pressed to reconsider financing for this project because of a well-publicised complaint by a rival bidder. Had that occurred it would have been a far greater embarrassment for the Guyana Government.
The debacle also underlines the government’s complete unwillingness to come to grips with its minority status in Parliament nearly three years on. It signally failed to accept that for the orderly and secure funding of the specialty hospital there needed to be an all-party understanding of the conceptualizing of this project and how it would work in the interest of the nation. The Ramotar administration was disinterested in this with the result that the project is now again in limbo and there is a frenetic scramble to gather whatever funds were legitimately disbursed for the project. Litigation may now straddle continents.
The specialty hospital is only one example of the chicanery that has gripped public procurement. In the people’s interest, President Ramotar should impose a moratorium on the consideration of these mega contracts until the procurement system is infused with fairness, transparency and credibility. One step in this direction would be the establishment of the procurement commission.
It wasn’t only the Surendra project that demonstrated the depravity to which the government has sunk. Coming in as a strong contender was the astonishing announcement on Thursday by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Mr. Leslie Cadogan that seven weeks after the Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon had announced that only New GPC had been prequalified for drug supplies to the public health system, the Ministry of Health was still to be notified of the award. Therefore, the Ministry of Health had been unable to formally notify the bidders, as required by law, of the outcome.
The government must honestly believe it is governing a nation of fools if it expects Mr Cadogan’s piddle to be accepted. Why would the Ministry of Health tarry for seven weeks on the important matter of drug procurement without making certain that the process has been completed? The answer is that the Ministry now faces legal action that can throw out the pre-qualification of New GPC because the bidders had not been notified of the selection. The Ministry now wants to lay the groundwork for righting the breach of the law. Has it been the case in the past that procuring agencies have sat for seven weeks awaiting notification even though Dr. Luncheon had spoken? There has been no doubt in the minds of reasonable people that the government crafted pre-qualification guidelines to ensure that only New GPC would be selected for drug supplies. The tomfoolery in Mr Cadogan’s statement is evidence that the government is governing for itself and its cronies and favoured ones.
An early sign of the reluctance of President Ramotar to govern in a just and fair manner was his dereliction of duty in his capacity as Minister of Information. When faced with stark evidence of improper practices at the state broadcaster, National Communications Network by two of the darlings of the PPP: Messrs Fuzzy Sattaur and Martin Goolsarran, President Ramotar did nothing, was evasive at several presidential press conferences and still to date, more than two years on has not acted. This exact type of behaviour, which had been present even before he acceded to the Presidency is on full display in many parts of his administration which is why Surendra and others like Baishanlin have operated with impunity.
If the President himself refuses to be accountable, one can hardly expect his ministers and other officials to be. Which raises the conduct of the Minister of Agriculture, Dr Leslie Ramsammy in relation to the US$4M in pumps that Surendra should have been diligently procuring. The media have reported unrelentingly on the lack of clear information on what aspects of this contract have been fulfilled and which have not. Despite this, neither Minister Ramsammy nor the NDIA has given a clear picture of what Surendra has delivered. If these persisting doubts are added to what the government is now claiming about the Indian company in relation to the specialty hospital, then there is clearly a serious problem. Last month in these columns there was a call for strict accounting by the Ministry of Agriculture on Surendra’s commitments. The Ministry has not budged. The government must now have a forensic analysis done of the paper trail for the pumps and to determine if Surendra has delivered.
In his book, The New Freedom, US President Woodrow Wilson lamented the entanglement of big business and government thusly: “The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.” It is a criticism that can properly be levelled at the Ramotar government.
In the political crisis that faces the PPP/C government and the instability that has been created as a result, President Ramotar must discharge his obligation to the people and to place their interests above those of his party and its friends. As late in the day it is, the Surendra scandal affords the President a rapidly disappearing chance of some redemption.
