A senior Public Servant with knowledge of the procedures associated with the allocation of state contracts has been speaking with the Stabroek Business about what he says are the “possible pitfalls” in government simply awarding contracts for various types of state-funded public works as a means of what he described as efforts to create “ethnic balance” in the allocation of such state contracts.
“The problem is that it almost certainly goes high up,” the Public Sector official said, alluding to what he described as “the challenges associated with eradicating the ‘doctoring’ of tenders.” “We may well be in for many more ugly, even catastrophic experiences if we cannot remove the cancer,” the source told the Stabroek Business.
And, following a question put to him arising out of a recent presentation made to a group named the Black Entrepreneurs Association by Public Works Minister Juan Edghill, the source said that he found it disturbing that, apparently, it was necessary to make what he described as, “special arrangements”, to ensure that there was “ethnic balance” in the allocation of state contracts. “That, in itself, says a great deal about the system.” The source said that it was desirous that the government be “fair and even-handed” in the allocation of state contracts though he told the Stabroek Business that there was a need to try to “compensate for perceived prejudices” in the allocation of contracts by running “the risks associated with gestures that resemble ethnic compensation.”
According to the source “perhaps if there had not been problems associated with prejudiced contract allocations in the first place the issue of having to compensate for those prejudices would not have arisen.” And, according to the source, “what is no less dangerous than having to compensate for prejudices are those practices that are embedded in the state tender system that make bribes and kickbacks the engine that drives the system. No one who is close enough to what is happening can pretend that they are not aware of it.”
There are two problems here. First, there is the problem of state funds going into undeserving pockets. Secondly, the ‘kickbacks and back-handers’ often impact directly on the quality of the work delivered in the sectors.
Projects across the sectors in the state system have been cited for ‘shoddy’ or ‘incomplete’ work by private contractors. The source says that, in a host of instances, those anomalies can be traced to “shortchanging the projects” on account of amounts from the contract sums being “hived off to kicks and greasing palms.” The source told the Stabroek Business that he wanted it to be clear that the reality of Guyana is that where there are contracts to be assigned we should ensure that these are allocated through a fair and transparent process which, of necessity, takes account of would – be contractors having the skills and the expertise to complete those works to the satisfaction of government.
The source added, however, that it would be unprincipled to fashion a system for contract allocation that is prejudiced to take account of ethnicity at the expense of ensuring that there is what people call ethnic balance. “There are competent contractors in various fields in various parts of the country and it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that opportunities exist for contractors of every ethnicity to benefit from a fair shake insofar as opportunities to secure state contracts are concerned.”
Last Saturday, the Department of Public Information reported the Works Minister as saying to members of Black Entrepreneurs Association, at a forum staged at the Umana Yana, that numerous opportunities are available for small contractors in all sectors of the country’s economy. Edghill told the group that, “small contractors are not only weeding and cleaning……….civil works building of a fence, building of guard huts, building of sanitary blocks,” an allusion to the view held in some quarters that those are mostly the types of contractors to which contractors of a particular ethnicity have access. He said that there were also small contracts related to the building of roads because…”there are some roads that fall under the $15 million margin that could be given to small contracts and then on the maintenance side of the budget, you have maintenance of buildings, plumbing, guttering, electrical, air conditioning, a whole host of other fields that could be involved…sea defence maintenance.”
Meanwhile, the source told the Stabroek Business that he believed that aspects of the state contracts regime had, “certainly led to the belief that the system had become skewed by prejudice. It is really a matter of having a fair and transparent process in the allocation of state contracts, across the board, and I’m afraid that people have pointed to what they perceive, as evidence, that this is not the case,” the source told the Stabroek Business.
