Over a year after he was questioned by the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) and it was found that there was no wrongdoing in the award of the feasibility contract for the New Demerara Harbour Bridge, former Minister of Public Infrastructure David Patterson was yesterday again questioned by SOCU on the same issue.
Recently sacked Demerara Harbour Bridge and Asphalt Plant Manager, Rawlston Adams, was also questioned since the overall $162,653,015 funding for the project came from his agency’s coffers.
Patterson and his attorney, Ronald Burch-Smith, yesterday visited SOCU for questioning into the award of the 2016 contract to Dutch firm LievenseCSO, which had conducted a feasibility study and design of a new Demerara Harbour Bridge.
The former minister did not answer questions pertaining to his visit and his attorney told Stabroek News that he too would not comment on the issue, but would instead be at court to represent his client, when the need arises.
Pressed about yesterday’s visit, Burch-Smith said that “really nothing happened”.
When a SOCU official was queried about what happens next, this newspaper was told that Patterson will be charged, as soon as Monday.
However, Patterson’s Alliance for Change (AFC) party yesterday supplied the written advice from former Police Legal Advisor, Justice Claudette Singh, to then SOCU Head Sydney James, along with a number of other pieces of correspondences between legal teams and investigators, which had in January 2019, advised SOCU to close the case as no criminal act was found.
Singh had also sent a memo to SOCU where she explained that she agreed with the advice from SOCU’s Legal Advisor that the case be closed.
“I advise that I am in agreement with SOCU’s Legal Advisor Ms. Noble, that there is no evidence of any collusion between Arie Mol/Lievense, CSO, and the personnel from the Ministry of Public Infrastructure… As regards the correspondence from Stacy Fraser, it is evident that Cabinet approved the funding of the contract which was awarded by the Ministry,” Singh wrote to James.
“Head SOCU, Please be advised that no criminal charges were recommended by the PLA Honourable Justice Claudette Singh S.C. As such, I recommend closure of this file,” SOCU’s Legal Advisor Leslyn Noble had also written to SOCU Head Sydney James, in February 2019.
In 2018, a Public Procurement Commission (PPC) investigation, which was requested by then People’s Progressive Party/Civic’s Chief Whip Gail Teixeira, had found that the ministry breached the Procurement Act in awarding a contract in December 2016 to Lievense CSO for consultancy services for the feasibility study and design for the new bridge.
The report of the investigation said that MoPI did not heed the advice offered by the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) to retender the project, after the first tendering process failed to procure a company and the process was annulled.
Patterson’s then ministry had defended the single-sourcing, citing what it said were time constraints surrounding the need to complete the new bridge and the fact that Cabinet had been fully involved in the decision to hire LievenseCSO.
The then opposition had pushed for SOCU to investigate the award and Patterson was questioned.
Almost a year later, in June, 2019, SOCU found that no criminal offence had been committed. In a statement then, the Guyana Police Force had said that legal advice had been obtained indicating that “a) There was no misuse of funds. b) There is no evidence that a criminal offence has been committed and c) There is no evidence of any collusion between Arie Mol/LievenseCSO and the personnel from the Ministry of Public Infrastructure.”
New evidence
But Teixeira the same week of SOCU’s announcement would again write the PPC asking that another investigation be launched since her party had new evidence.
“As a result of this information, I am once again writing the Public Procurement Commission. This information exposes a level of collusion, conspiracy and corruption that requires urgent investigation and intervention with a view to bringing criminal charges …(in relation) to the award of the contract for the Feasibility Study and payments to LievenseCSO,” Teixeira had stated in the letter.
She listed what the PPP/C believed were “gross breaches”.
Teixeira accused Patterson of interference in the Demerara Harbour Bridge Corporation (DHBC), a statutory body, and noted that circumvention of the Chairman and the Board is in violation of the laws of Guyana and the Caribbean Court of Justice ruling of 2006 in the case of Brent Griffith vs the GRA. She also charged that the Minister has committed numerous infractions of the Procurement Act, the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act Section 85 (b), The Audit Act, and the Criminal Law (Offences) Act, with regard to the entire process leading up to the award of the contract and subsequent payments to the company into 2018, using revenues of the DHBC Asphalt Plant. “This level of recklessness and irresponsible behavior with public funds and public projects must not be condoned,” she had written.
The then PPP/C Chief Whip alleged that the tender process was manipulated to ensure the award of the contract for the feasibility study to LievenseCSO and that revenue generated by the DHBC Asphalt Plant which accounts for years 2017 and 2018, and totalling $293,439,182, was used after the contract was publicly known to have ended. As a result, she said the Auditor General needs to examine the contract and its duration and investigate the movement of those monies for the years 2017 and 2018 from the DHBC Asphalt Plant, with a view to seeing who were its recipients and the availability of documents to substantiate the disbursements.
Former PPC Chairperson Carol Corbin told Stabroek News yesterday that the Commission had responded to Teixeira, explaining that her findings would be best suited for an investigation by the Auditor General.
“It was about alleged overpayments and not the procurement process. We responded to her and advised that since this was now in respect of payments made, the auditor general should be asked to pursue the matter. We then wrote the Auditor General and asked him to follow up in keeping with his statutory obligations. I don’t think that they found anything of significance,” Corbin noted.
