Twenty-four hundred nippers/pliers which were procured by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) were delivered on April 23, 2015, five days before the contract was signed, according to a special investigation by the Office of the Auditor General, which has also concluded that $3m could have been saved if Klein pliers were bought instead.
This final report on the acquisition of the nippers is one of three that were recently completed and like the other two – one regarding the purchase of radio sets and another concerning the acquisition of ink toners and cartridges – police intervention was recommended. All three reports identify severe procurement breaches which will raise questions about what has been transpiring at GECOM. This report, which was submitted by the Auditor General on September 29, 2017 to Chief Election Officer, Keith Lowenfield, relates to the purchase of the nippers in 2015.
According to the report which was seen by Stabroek News, in March 2015 requests for quotations (RFQ) were sent out by the Administrative Department to four suppliers for the unit cost of 203mm Klien pliers and 160mm Max steel narrow head diagonal nippers. However only Kanhai’s Guyana Electrical Company submitted quotations for both items. The other suppliers only quoted the price for the max steel narrow head diagonal nippers.