-majority of equipment not in use up to last September
A special investigation by the Office of the Auditor General of GECOM’s purchase of 50 radio sets for the 2015 general elections has revealed procurement breaches among a host of other problems and a recommendation was made for the police to be called in for an in-depth probe and criminal charges if necessary.
To make matters worse, the $99.5m sets were taken possession of just days before the May 11th 2015 general elections and up to September 14 last year, 88% of the sets were yet to be used. The administrative procedures employed by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) for the purchase of the sets appeared to favour Mobile Authority though another interested supplier had the most responsive bid.
Though it had proceeded to procure the 50 radio sets from Mobile Authority, GECOM then entered another arrangement with the United Nations Development Programme for the supply of 12 satellite phones on the grounds that “security reasons” prevented the use of the 50 radio sets on election day.