At a recent meeting in preparation for their appearance at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Finance Secretary Sukrishnalall Pasha stated that he had informed several permanent secretaries to desist from the practice of making advance payments to companies which are deemed as reputable.
The statement was made at a PAC hearing on Monday that was scrutinizing the Ministry of Home Affairs’ expenditures.
“I explained advance payments are not allowed and that practice should be stopped… No advance payment should be made and if advance payment is made there should be a bond to secure it… it is a breach in law to make [an] advance payment,” he stated.
Pasha said that no company must be given special treatment, and as such he will soon be dispatching a memo to permanent secretaries to remind them to desist from enabling advance payments.
At the time, the PAC was perusing the 2017 and 2018 reports where they questioned the delay in the arrival of the fire boat for the Guyana Fire Service (GFS). The boat was delivered a year after it was scheduled to arrive.
Former Permanent Secretary of the then Ministry of Public Security, Daniella McCalmon, told the committee that the full payment was made after the construction of the boat was completed and not on its arrival at Port Georgetown.
She explained that the UK-based company, Angloco Limited, had experienced difficulties finding a vessel to transport the completed boat from their construction site to Guyana.
McCalmon informed that in October 2017, 43 per cent of the cost was paid to the company and in August 2018, the outstanding 53 per cent was paid.
Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill, who is also a member of the PAC, suggested that the contract should have been worded for final payment to be made when the boat arrived in Guyana, and not when its construction was completed.
He also questioned whether Guyana was compensated in any way for the inconvenience, since the shipping challenges were not issues for the country to deal with.
The permanent secretary responded that she was not in a position to say but to best of her knowledge, the company has been generous to the GFS and in the past, made donations of equipment to the fire service.
According to the audit report, the sum of $174.2 million was expended on the purchase of a fire boat, water tenders, and ambulances for the GFS. Included in this sum was a contract awarded by the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board via sole sourcing in the sum of $307.457 million for the procurement of one multi-purpose fire rescue boat for the GFS.
The contract was signed on August 4, 2017 and according to its terms, the boat was to have
been delivered 9 to 10 months after the date of signing.
On December 31, 2017, the amount of $131.354 million was paid to the contractor. Approval was granted by the Finance Secretary for a multi-year contract and the final payment was budgeted for in 2018. However, at the time of reporting, the boat had not been delivered although ten months had elapsed. Nevertheless, it was noted that the supplier had indicated that the boat would be shipped on November 5, 2018. This was not done and the boat arrived in 2019.
In October 2019, then Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan, and then Fire Chief, Marlon Gentle, commissioned the boat.
The fireboat, named the “Protector”, has the capacity to pump over 5,000 gallons of water per minute.
Gentle at the time said that over the last 30 years the fire service had made numerous efforts to acquire a fireboat but their efforts never bore fruit.
“Over 30 years we have been without a boat, so we would have had no expertise within the fire service even though they [firefighters] had exposure to marine fire-fighting training,” Gentle said, adding that he was happy the fire service was now equipped with such an important asset.
“Port Georgetown remains a high risk area in our firefighting plan because of its import and export windows at the wharves. This is why a marine sector of the fire service is important for us to carry out our mandate,” Gentle stressed.
The Fire Chief stated that 17 ranks were trained by the Guyana Defence Force Coast Guard to form the marine section of the GFS.
