President Irfaan Ali has defended the $566.9m contract award to Kares Engineering Inc for the rebuilding of the North Ruimveldt Secondary School.
In an exclusive interview with Stabroek News on Monday, Ali says that all awards for government contracts follow the law which also has room for adjudication. With the former Auditor General Anand Goolsarran flaying the government for not acting to protect the over half a billion dollar in taxpayers’ money awarded to the company, Ali said that there is only so much government can do.
“This was a public tender. What are we to do? If you went out, if you go to public tender, a public process, people participate in the process, there’s a recommendation that goes to the tender board, the Board sends a recommendation to Cabinet, who can who only have a response…what else is there to do?” Ali questioned during the interview with this newspaper.
Goolsarran however pointed that at varying points of the procurement process, the Ministry of Education, the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) and the Cabinet that the President presides over should have taken action to safeguard public spending.
It was also under the Ali administration that a company with no prior history in the construction industry was awarded a government contract to build a school in Bamia, Linden-Soesdyke Highway.
The President was asked about concerns of perceived procurement corruption with large public projects and his government’s justification for the Kares award.
“First of all, I do not control the tender process. Every single project went out to public tender. In that public tender, the bids were received, there is an evaluation by the tender board and the recommendation sent to Cabinet. All we do is offer a no- objection,” he stressed. The President said that the governing party has “no affiliation” with the company awarded the contract. “I don’t know the party having any affiliation with any person; Kares or anyone else that is the justification for someone getting a project.”
Goolsarran has said that the Ministry of Education, the NPTAB and Cabinet all failed in their duty to the public by not acting to stop Kares Engineering Inc. from securing the $566.9m North Ruimveldt Secondary School contract considering its previous poor performance on an even larger project.
In his accountability column, last Sunday, Goolsarran said that after the Evaluation Committee of NPTAB had concluded its work and recommended Kares, the procuring agency – the Ministry of Education – had an obligation to take account of Kares’ disastrous work on the $728m Kato Secondary School project of 2012. Goolsarran said that Section 5 of the Procurement Act sets out the responsibilities of the procuring entity in relation to the criteria to be used in determining the qualifications of contractors and suppliers. “Included in the list of criteria is the requirement that past performance substantiated by documentary evidence would commend the concerned contractor or supplier for serious consideration for the award of the contract. The Ministry of Education therefore had the obligation of ensuring that Kares Engineering met this criterion before consideration of its tender”, he contended.
Another procurement specialist told this newspaper that the procuring entity, the Ministry of Education “should have, as a rule, ensured that their tender document asked questions about previous performance and this was a glaring one since it was the same Ministry that had that experience with the disastrous Kato School.” The specialist agreed with Goolsarran saying that, “The NPTAB also erred badly or looked the other way.”
Ali said that he believes that all the processes were followed and emphasized that it was all done under public scrutiny. “This is a public process. So we [should] abandon this public process? I don’t understand. I don’t understand the genesis of these issues. I don’t understand how we derive or we even come to a position that these are issues for us, when you’re going through a mechanism; you’re going through a public process,” he said. Asked if he is satisfied with the current processes, he replied, “I have to be satisfied with the institutional arrangements surrounding [it] and the laws. The laws are there on how bids are advertised and how bids are received. We don’t involve ourselves in that. There is a Procurement Act. There is a National Procurement and Tender Administration Board. It is a public advertisement. What else can the government do? What else are we supposed to do?” he said.
The procurement specialist said that the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) could have also investigated given that they have the legal authority to, even without a complaint.
“There was enough of a public outcry about the previous project that should have put everyone on notice. The PPC has the authority to investigate how the contract was awarded. They can investigate any part of the process. They are the oversight Body with the power, particularly if something smells ‘fishy’! They should investigate this one even if it is just to assure the public that there is no corruption involved in the process,” the official said.
