In a historic move, 13 companies and persons have been debarred for varying periods by the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) from getting government contracts, including the Chinese company presently executing the East Coast Demerara road expansion project.
The development follows the approval of long-awaited debarment regulations earlier this year as the PPC ramps up preparations for oversight of the spending of revenues from the oil and gas sector.
Twelve of the debarments are as a result of similar action taken by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the 13th following an application by the National Pro-curement and Tender Administration Board, PPC Chairperson Carol Corbin told Stabroek News in an interview yesterday.
“What you will be seeing soon, very soon, is the effect of [debarment regulations enforcement] because we have taken the decision to debar a contractor based on an application by the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board.
“It has also allowed us to debar those contractors who have been debarred by the multilateral agencies. We are not the ones who are institutionalising the actual penalty but our regulations allows us to debar them automatically. So you won’t have a situation where they are debarred by a multilateral financial institution and we are still awarding contracts to them,” Corbin added.
China Railway First Group (Guyana) Inc, which is currently engaged on the East Coast project, has been debarred for two years following a similar penalty imposed on its parent company by the IDB. The Guyana debarment will not affect its current work on the East Coast project but it won’t be able to bid on future projects here for another two years.
Lethem-based contractor Vevakanand Dalip Enterprise was debarred by the IDB from December, 2017 until December 2030, which means that period will also apply here.
The ground for debarment is contained in Regulation 3(1) (h) of the Debarment Regulations which empowers the Commission to debar a contractor who has “supplied false information in the process of submitting a bid…”
“The Public Procure-ment Commission hereby gives notice that it has debarred Mohamed Fasil Yunas, trading as Yunas Civil & Building Con-struction Services and Mohamed Fasil Yunas trading under any other name for a period of one (1) year effective 25th October, 2019,” the notice of debarment states.
Pointing to Regulation 3(2) of the Procurement (suspension and debarment) Regulations 2019, which states that “Any supplier or contractor who has been debarred from participating in the procurement process of another jurisdiction or an international organization shall be automatically debarred from participating in a procurement process in Guyana, by the Commission,” the PPC listed the 12 others.
The names of the firms or persons, their addresses and the period of ineligibility are shown in the table below.
Corbin explained that the PPC’s regulations empower it to debar someone or a company from one year to ten years. “So it depends on the seriousness of the infraction done. For the persons who have been debarred by the institutions, it would have to be for the period that they have been debarred for. If say the World Bank debars a contractor, they look at all affiliates. So for example they have debarred China Railway and all the companies that are registered in various countries, and that includes Guyana,” she said.
“We cannot stop a contract that is being executed at this time but they are debarred from bidding for any new contract for the entire period,” she added, while explaining that the names listed will also be published on the website of the PPC and the agency will send a circular to all procuring entities for them to take notice of it.
Following recommendations from the IDB, the PPC had held a number of stakeholder meetings on enacting debarment for errant contractors.
Covering all aspects of debarring, the PPC has also decided to put in place measures for due diligence to be undertaken by evaluators.
Corbin explained, “We also decided that the evaluation, the persons who are evaluating tenders, should refer to those lists before the final report of the evaluation is completed. So they have to confirm that they have checked the lists to ensure that those persons who are tendering are debarred. Even though there is a questioning aspect in the documents, asking a contractor if they have been debarred (that) is not enough because they can say no. So you cannot only reply on their answer as an evaluator.”
Corbin said that as Guyana prepares for first oil next year and substantial monies going to the public coffers from then onwards, the country has to prepare to meet international standards as there will be a number of foreign investors and other agencies doing business here.
“We are raising the levels as we prepare for oil and gas, because for example, if we are spending a certain amount of money now, with oil and gas we will be tripling that spending. So contractors have to put themselves in order so that any level of corruption, whether perceived or not, is reduced and that those funds are properly spent and not wasted, and that we achieve value for money,” she stressed.
“So contractors may be debarred for submitting false information or poor performance. I think having the debarment regulations in place will put contractors and suppliers on guard that they must put themselves in order; they must perform properly. It wouldn’t be that a contractor can perform badly with X ministry and then go to Y ministry and get another contract. No. This will also require them to ensure that they have all their statutory requirements – GRA, NIS etcetera. This is preparing them for international standards and requirements,” she added.
