Chronic quantitative and qualitative weaknesses affecting the performance of the National Procurement and Tender Administration (NPTA) system and which are yet to secure the attention of the political administration are likely to continue to seriously affect the efficiency of the tender process.
It will also create snags in government’s efforts to expedite projects identified for funding under the provisions of the recently promulgated 2015 budget, a source close to the Tender Administration has told this newspaper.
“Now that the budget is out of the way there will be a rush by the various ministries and other government agencies to have tenders expedited so that they can press ahead with important projects. We are heading towards a situation where the public servants who deal with aspects of tender administration will probably be seriously overworked. Apart from the sheer volume of tenders that they will have to attend to we also face the challenge of not having enough specialists in the various areas so that the work of properly evaluating the tenders that are submitted is also likely to be a problem,” the source told Stabroek Business.
And according to the source while the problems confronting the state Tender Administration pre-date the change in political administration just over three months ago, the new APNU+AFC government runs the risk of having to deal with “enormous snags” in the tender system unless it moves quickly to “significantly strengthen” its operating capacity. “There is the risk of further serious slippage in the whole tender process,” the source said.
The National Procurement and Tender Administration Board had become a source of controversy under the previous PPP/C government enmeshed as it had become in public accusations that the tender process had become ensnared in practices that favoured contractors close to the previous regime. Over the years there have been protests over cases of private contractors securing multi-million dollar government contracts without satisfying the requisite requirements including the acquisition of valid National Insurance Scheme and Guyana Revenue Authority Compliances.
Controversy has also arisen over charges that under the previous administration the vast majority of contracts for the importation of drugs for the national health system were awarded to the New Guyana Pharmaceutical Corporation (NGPC) based on the entity’s close connections with the former PPP/C administration. Aspects of that arrangement including alleged payments amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars for drugs, some of which are yet to be delivered are currently the subject of an official probe.
At the level of the NPTA Stabroek Business understands that members of staff are still awaiting a response to their request made several weeks ago to meet with Finance Minister Winston Jordan in order to iron out matters pertaining to the functioning of the department including what the source described as “longstanding staffing issues.”
And according to the source whereas under the previous administration it had been understood that the Minister in the Ministry of Finance Juan Edghill was responsible for matters relating to procurement there has been no indication as to whether the current Minister in the Ministry – Jaipaul Sharma – had taken over in that area.
The source told Stabroek Business that the “challenging circumstances” at the NPTA “coincide with the appointment of a new Board, including a new Chairman, who would, in many cases, have to familiarize themselves with the processes within the NPTA. Only one member of the previous Board has been retained to serve on the current one,” according to the source.
“There are even those who might argue that even if it might have been felt that there was need for a new Chairman there is a case for holding on to at least some members of the existing Board.”
What makes the issue important, the source told this newspaper, was the fact that “the work of the NPTAB has critical implications for the efficient functioning of government as a whole”.
