The Alliance For Change (AFC) says that the commissioner it nominated to the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) gave sound reasons for disagreeing with a PPC decision rejecting a complaint by Akamai Inc over the handling of its bid for the purchase of line equipment.
In a release on Friday, the AFC took aim at Joel Bhagwandin, the government-nominated Commissioner PPC who, it said, has sought to “personally attack and discredit” AFC-nominated Commissioner Dianna Rajcumar for her dissenting position on the Akamai’s Summary of Findings in which she asked that the complainant be engaged in the investigation process.
Bhagwandin’s criticism was contained in a letter titled `The AFC is attempting to direct the Procurement Commission on how to conduct an investigation’ in the January 11, 2024 edition of Stabroek News.
Bhagwandin contended in his letter that though Rajcumar requested that the complainant be engaged, when he asked to what end, she said she did not know and that it was “a norm” for her to fail to justify her positions objectively and adequately.
He wrote: “In fact, on multiple occasions during our deliberations at the commission’s statutory meetings, I have had to remind my learned colleague about our constitutional duties and obligations pursuant to Article 212 W (2) which states that … ‘the Commission shall be independent, impartial, and shall discharge its functions fairly.’ This means that the commissioners ought not to subject themselves to political influence or directives. Yet, this fundamental principle seems to evade my colleague from the AFC.”
In response, the AFC said that at no time did Rajcumar personally attack her PPC colleagues. It contended that all she did was state her dissenting position on the Akamai case where deliberations were ongoing. As such, she simply indicated publicly her reasons for her dissent after the majority ruling of the commission was made public. However, the AFC said, it would seem that her candid statement enraged Bhagwandin, causing him to attack her credibility, with “glaring” untruths.
The AFC said that it felt inclined to respond with the version of what transpired as reported by Rajcumar in her verbatim deliberations on the matter to the commission on December 14, 2023, via email excerpts. The release informed that the various commissioners deliberated via email before the final consultation at in-person meetings.
It quoted one of Rajcumar’s email thus: “I have perused the report prepared. Unfortunately, I do not know what was the methodology used to compile the report. Internally, an investigation policy and procedure was developed by the Legal Department which has not been adopted as yet. I have stated my support for the said procedure which thoroughly outlines the steps to follow to conduct an investigation including a step for interviews with parties involved.
“Firstly, all contracts over $15 million are awarded by NPTAB, and as such they are required to provide the commission with all the requested information.
“Secondly, the copy of an evaluation report without all the supporting documents is not sufficient to make a determination as to the validity of this award – if there was an error in the preparation of the evaluation report as questioned by Motiram. This can only be discovered by a full examination of the supporting documents as to confirm the findings in the evaluation report.
“Complainants come to the commission expecting that we would impartially examine their claims. Therefore, reporting what is contained in the NPTAB report without fully verifying the details is, in my opinion, doing a disservice to the complainant. As such, I cannot agree with the report’s findings.
“I suggest that we contact the complainant through written/oral interview to ascertain that what we received from NPTAB is what he submitted.
“In light of the foregoing, I am unable to support and append my signature to this report.”
The AFC highlighted that since it was Bhagwandin who put into the public domain, the internal deliberations of what he claimed obtained at the PPC meeting in order to discredit Rajcumar, it felt compelled to reveal what she had written on the matter, which Bhagwandin described as “failing consistently to justify her positions objectively and adequately.” The AFC maintained that the excerpt above contained “sound, cogent and adequate reasons” for Rajcumar’s dissenting position.
It also compared Rajcumar’s statement with Bhagwandin’s one-sentence position on both the Akamai and Motiram cases, which did not extend beyond, “I concur with the reports by the secretariat”.
As far as the AFC is concerned, the matter is best left to the public to form their own conclusion. And regarding Bhagwandin’s assertion that the AFC has a special interest in Akamai and not in Motiram’s case, the release stated that this has been proven by the email excerpts to be a “grand lie,” since Rajcumar objected to the PPC’s summary of findings on both cases on similar grounds.
“The AFC repeats its call that a commissioner has a right to a dissenting position which must be stated in the investigation report as distinctly as the majority opinion,” the release added.
