As of last Thursday, over $650 million was paid to seven contractors involved in the construction of the COVID-19 facility at the former Ocean View Hotel even though the tender board had only approved the project on Tuesday and the source of the funding remains unclear.
While construction works began in April, the contract for the over $1 billion COVID-19 Hospital was only last week approved by the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) with head of the agency Berkley Wickham raising concerns that some contracts did not meet the threshold for the restrictive tendering criteria.
The contract and other documents, seen by the Stabroek News, states that the document is “Secret” and is the property of the Ministry of Finance and the NPTAB. They reveal that the contract is divided into eight lots with eight contractors.
Details of the contracts, the contractors, and the respective amounts per contract are shown in the table below.
“Please be advised that approval has been given for contracts for The Conversion of Ocean View International into a Quarantine and Treatment Facility – Liliendaal, Georgetown, Region No. 4 Lots 1-8 to be awarded to as per attachment 1,” the NPTAB Approval letter for the contract, NPTA REF Number: 791/2020/43, states.
Signed by Mark Bender for Wickham on June 16th, the document reminds the Permanent Secretary of the procuring agency – the Ministry of Public Health – that as per the Procurement Act of 2003, Chapter 73:05, Section 11(1), details of the contract award should be forwarded to the agency immediately, so as to facilitate publishing it on NPTAB’s website within five days of signing.
However, before Bender’s approval, Wickham, the agency’s Chairman, had written to the NPTAB informing of the request for approval of the project, and stated that some of the documents for the project did not meet the standard for the type of procurement sought and asked that the board make their recommendation on the matter.
“We have received an original request dated April 20th, 2020 from Ministry of Public Health seeking approval by NPTAB of the project. A number of claims in the submission submitted were not supported by documentation. A letter dated May 11th 2020 was sent requesting the missing documentation. No response to that letter has been received,” he told the NPTAB members on June 2nd, 2020.
“However, on June 1st, 2020 a new request was received by NPTAB with a new set of documentation. In both cases 1 and 2 above, Ministry of Health was applying for approval for restricted tendering. The documentation provided in both cases did not meet the standard for restricted tendering,” he added.
Convert
According to the document, Wickham said that the agency noted that while the request for approval was dated April, it was received on June 1st 2020 and it gave a detailed account of the reason for wanting to convert the hotel to a hospital.
When the Ministry of Public Health sought funds from the Ministry of Finance and clearance from NPTAB about the contract, in June, it gave a background for the project. It highlighted that cases of pneumonia were first reported on 31st December 2019 in the Wuhan Municipality in Hubei Province, People’s Republic of China as well as the January 9, 2020, report by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and prevention (China CDC) that a novel coronavirus was the causative agent of the outbreak.
It highlighted too that the World Health Organization named the disease COVID-19 and declared it a pandemic and the fatal havoc it wreaked globally, especially in Europe and the United States.
“In view of the aforementioned, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Public Health is requesting approval for the award of contracts for the conversion of Ocean View International Hotel into a quarantine and treatment facility…as follows,” the document states.
It noted that details of the request and bill of quantities were attached, that the NPTAB supports the request in accordance with Section 28 (c) of the Procurement Act, 2003 and that the project was being submitted for review by the NPTAB, based on the information provided.
The document bears the initials “W.J Minister of Finance”. Efforts to contact Minister of Finance Winston Jordan yesterday proved futile as calls to his mobile number went unanswered.
However, on Friday, the finance ministry’s Public Relations Officer Wanita Huburn said that the ministry would not be speaking on the project.
“We are not speaking to anyone. You should direct your questions to the secretariat of the National (COVID-19) Task Force,” she said.
Told that it was Jordan who had spoken on the finances and the project, she replied, “He spoke because he was asked about it.”
Wickham’s letter to the Board asked that they analyse all the documents and advise the agency on the way forward.
“The request to the Board members [is] to peruse the attached document which dealt with the need for an urgent response to deal with the pandemic and for Guyana to be in a position to respond to likely outcomes. The questions for the Board members is whether this project qualifies as an event that required urgent action on the part of the Ministry of Public Health and the relevant method of procurement is applicable in this case,” the chairman said.
He asked that the matter be treated urgently and said that the decision will be recorded in the agency’s minutes taking system.
Paid
Stabroek News on Sunday reported that with the March 2 election recount results showing a loss for the incumbent APNU+AFC, the owner of the property, Jacob Rambarran, could face a long wait for payment and searing questions, as the winner of the polls, the PPP/C, has raised a flurry of accountability issues about the project.
“We have to review it. There will be a review,” Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo had told this newspaper on Friday.
“Right now the entire country is in the dark on the price of the land, how the contractors were procured, if it was transparently purchased… and we still don’t know,” he added.
For the PPP/C, the lack of details about the project remains a concern and it believes that before a decision is taken on keeping, modifying or terminating the project, a detailed review must be undertaken.
Jagdeo said that the only information on the project is what has been reported in the press and complaints made about the lack of transparency. “We heard that it was compulsorily acquired, we are not sure if it was concluded. And if it was concluded, what price was paid for it?” he questioned
“We do not know who did the design and if it was fitting for a hospital for infectious diseases. Were there bills of quantity prepared? Who did them? The practice was not a transparent one so we have to examine it to see if we got value for money,” he added.
Due to the current political impasse and the likely change in government, Rambarran, who owns the three-acre Liliendaal property, is worried as he has not yet been paid for the property, which was acquired through compulsory acquisition.
“We have not received any money as yet, nothing,” Rambarran had said on Friday when contacted.
“Yes, I am worried. You have to be worried because of the uncertainty…,” he added, when asked if he was concerned about the possible change in government and the project being terminated.
Sources last week told this newspaper that many of the contractors who are working on the facility had not yet been paid by government and have been told that there is no access to funds to pay them as yet.
But with the contract approved last week Tuesday, it seems that payment methods were fast- tracked since this newspaper yesterday found out that as of Thursday, June 18, 2020, seven contractors were paid 60% of each of their respective contract sums. The total paid to date stands at a little over $650 million.
It is unclear why a project that would cost taxpayers such a hefty sum would be labelled “secret” and rushed through while the country is currently in a political crisis and simultaneously seeking answers about government spending as citizens cope with the spread of COVID-19 here.