The Ministry of the Presidency (MOP) has decided to conduct an investigation into the financial arrangements of the E-Governance Project, a statement from the ministry said this morning.
As a result, Minister of State Joseph Harmon has instructed Project Manager Alexei Ramotar to proceed on administrative leave with immediate effect.
Harmon said in the release this move is to ensure proper facilitation of these investigations. Earlier this month Harmon and a team visited the project. The release said that he had then directed Government’s Adviser on E-Governance Floyd Levi, to “work closely” with Ramotar, the son of former President Donald Ramotar and the E-Governance project.
The E-Governance project has been rife with problems particularly as it relates to the billion-dollar fibre-optic cable which was to be laid from Brazil to Georgetown. Large sections of this cable are no longer usable.
The former PPP/C government had revealed that an agreement had been reached with Dax Engineering on March 18, 2015 to rehabilitate the project.
Chief Executive Officer of Dax Engineering Company, Faisal Mohammed, had told Stabroek News that the rehabilitation would cost “somewhere about US$10 million.” Then head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon told Stabroek News on April 26 that under the agreement for the repairs, the contractor, Dax Engineering, would be have been given a number of pairs of fibres in that cable for its own use. The cable has 12 pairs of fibres.
He had said that the specific number of pairs that Dax would be given had not yet been finalized but said experts had explained to the government that for its e-Governance project it would not utilize more than “one or two pairs for a long, long time to come.” This arrangement had been highly criticised.
The David Granger administration is yet to publicly state what decision it has taken as it relates to Dax Engineering.