On Friday, the Ministry of Housing and Water signed a mind-boggling $56.8b worth of infrastructural development works with contractors across the country. Housing is a lynchpin of the government’s manifesto and the Ali administration is clearly losing no time in advancing its plans for 50,000 house lots at the end of the five-year term replete with infrastructure and other major projects such as Silica City on the Linden/ Soesdyke Highway and transforming Palmyra on the Corentyne.
Just for context, that one session of the signing of contracts at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre is equivalent to 7.2% of the entire budget presented in January this year and just for comparison purposes and to demonstrate the vast annual expansion of the budget it represents 40% of the 2010 figure.
True to form, the contract signings came with the perfunctory warning from the Minister of Housing and Water Collin Croal about delays not being tolerated and the need to fulfil the commitment made by the government to citizens.
“This government has made commitments to the people of Guyana and to applicants who are waiting for their lots. So, therefore, you have to ensure you meet your timelines,” Mr Croal exhorted.
Helpfully, he also advised that he was available if problems arose. “Should you be confronted with issues and you are not seeing them addressed, my office is open to resolve issues… I don’t have an open door policy when you are tendering but from today you are my business… because we have a mandate to deliver and I have an open door policy in that regard,” Mr Croal told the contractors.
Adverting to the manifesto commitments made by the PPP/C the minister said: “This year we have strategised even more on how to ensure we meet our mandate… Every day the projects team’s mandate is increasing and the volume is also increasing”.
Notwithstanding the injustice of the deformed deal with ExxonMobil and its partners, the oil being extracted from beneath the Atlantic seabed has turbocharged government spending to stratospheric levels. The change envisaged could be transformative, however, great care must be taken to ensure that money is not wasted on poor work, stolen or frittered away. Evidence of this has already appeared under this government on relatively small projects. There has been little guidance from the ministries of Housing and Water and Public Works – under which the bulk of the expenditure is coming – on what steps are being taken to ensure value for money, quality work and scrupulous adherence to plans and timelines.
Delays are routine on many infrastructural projects, a function of the global supply chain problems, a shortage of human resources and the difficulty in sourcing materials. With the majority of these contracts requiring sand, stone and cement at the same time along with skilled labourers it isn’t difficult to conceive of a perfect storm brewing and gridlock developing. One contractor alone has secured $1.6b worth of infrastructure work in two tranches for Palmyra. Can this contractor deliver simultaneously on both? When the awards were being made were the Evaluation Committees of the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) aware of the capacities of these contractors and that they may be securing multiple contracts?
It would be in the best interest of the people and the government for Messrs Croal and Edghill to provide matrices by which all of these major works can be evaluated contemporaneously and kept on track. The occasional announced or unannounced visit by the minister or other ministry officials won’t cut it. There needs to be structured and consistent evaluation of these projects and a feedback mechanism involving the public and all stakeholders.
Good governance here needs a competent inspectorate – separated from ministry influence – to meticulously examine the works being done not only for compliance with timelines but, more importantly, for a high standard of work not requiring remediation soon after or unjustified cost overruns.
In each locality where projects are being undertaken, the schedule of works with timelines should be me made available to community leaders and citizens by the procuring agencies. Even though not functioning properly, the local government system can still provide an early warning for what might be going wrong. Regional councils, municipalities and neighbourhood democratic councils (NDCs) should be provided with training by the government, the Office of the Auditor General and the NPTAB on what to look for in these projects and to interface with both the contractor and the consultants.
Over the years, there have been stark failures by consultants on large projects like these. They simply do not diligently undertake their tasks. They, too, need to be held accountable. Whether performance bonds have been lodged and are accessed if contractors do not deliver is another area where there have been notable failures. The public awaits full accounting for the expenditures on the contract which was terminated by Minister Edghill as no work had been done despite mobilisation monies paid out and what happens with the contract for the Parika Market which was incinerated when sparks from the contractor’s workers ignited inflammable material.
As the overarching arbiter of the expenditure of public funds, one wants to see a far greater role for the Office of the Auditor General (OAG). It is invested with enormous constitutional powers to preserve the public coin of which its examination of the annual accounts is but one despite being the best known. Special audits – staff permitting – are a vital tool at its disposal which should enable it to examine the use of public monies in as close to real time as possible for a selection of these big ticket items.
The ludicrousness of the OAG commenting three or four years on in relation to badly-executed projects found in the annual accounts is self-evident yet the office seems quite comfortable for that to continue despite public criticism. The OAG is described as the Supreme Audit Institution of the State and says it is committed to the promotion of good governance including openness, transparency and improved public accountability through:
o The execution of high quality audits of the public accounts, entities and projects assigned by the Audit Act
o Timely reporting of the results to the legislature and ultimately the public.
None of that is possible if it continues to function the way it does as a scribe of history.
And what of the moribund opposition? It certainly has a role to play in and out of Parliament but is it prepared to do this and can it even function? The Leader of the Opposition, for instance, could assign one or two of the projects signed on Friday to each of his 30 Members of Parliament for scrupulous examination. The Economic Services Committee of Parliament can be enlivened to examine whether contracts are being appropriately awarded and whether the awardees are qualified to undertake these tasks and much more. Hard work is required, the useless verbal salvoes are easy.
A lot of money is now at stake compliments of a government which probably still can’t believe its good fortune. A lot if it can go to waste and be sucked up corruptly unless those who are entrusted as gatekeepers take up their tasks with vigour.
