Auditor General (AG) Deodat Sharma on Friday said that the Bamia Primary School project was not documented in his 2022 report due to its incompletion and once completed will be itemised in the 2023 report.
He told this newspaper that the Audit Office sent a letter to Regional Executive Officer Dwight John of Region Ten (Upper Demerara-Upper Berbice) questioning the status of the school project, which was mired in controversy.
There was no mention of the Bamia Primary School under the Ministry of Local Government, which launched the project in November 2021. Nor was it mentioned under Region Ten, which has been exercising some oversight of it though contractors for this project have missed several deadlines since 2021.
While in the case of Bamia, the AG said that a project has to be completed to be flagged or documented in his report, the Leguan Stelling which is still undergoing work was flagged in the 2021 Auditor General’s report. This project was flagged by the AG for payments for incomplete work. The AG had stated that the contractor received a total of $350.7 million from a contract total of $413.2 million.
“As of December 2021, the ministry paid an additional sum of $151.316 million to the contractor bringing the total sum paid to $350.751 million. It should be noted however that even though the additional sum was paid, it could not be determined if the incomplete work valued at $148.465 million was done,” the report stated.
It was explained that in 2019, the contractor received payments totalling $199.435 million from a total sum of $413.259 million.
On Thursday Public Accounts Committee Chairperson Jermaine Figuiera said that while alarmed at the fact that the Bamia Primary School was not documented in the AG’s 2022 report, he could not direct the Audit Office and the Auditor General to insert an item that requires public scrutiny in its report, but the parliamentary body can request that this matter be treated with urgency.
“It is a matter of concern for us [as members of the PAC] because this is a matter that grabbed the public’s attention and it is a matter that I was one of the persons in the community of Linden who would have publicly expressed my dissatisfaction at how this project is being undertaken,” the PAC chairperson told Stabroek News.
He added, “Now that the Auditor General’s report is out and this has not been highlighted then the Public Accounts Committee – and when I say that I mean myself and members from the opposition who make up that committee – will request that the AG does a performance audit on the project, because it is indeed a subject for scrutiny”.
Figueira noted that the Audit Office is an independent organisation that is guided by its constitutional obligations to examine financial matters that are deemed to be important, and the PAC cannot impede the work of this body.
“It behoves us as members of the PAC to bring to the AG’s and Audit Office’s attention matters of national importance but we cannot demand that he does so. However, we are hoping that he does,” the Member of Parliament posited.
Meanwhile, PAC Member Juretha Fernandes said that the Audit Office on the record had said that residents of Linden who witnessed substandard work being carried out on the school were free to go into the entity and file complaints.
That the project was mired in controversy but has not been flagged or mentioned in the AG’s report was disappointing and alarming, Fernandes said. The Alliance for Change spokesperson on Finance stated that the project did not have to meet its completion date for the Audit Office to do its due diligence.
She reasoned that since the project has been riddled with criticisms, it should be treated as a matter of public importance. Fernandes, like Figueira, said that there were many projects mired in controversy that government members of the PAC were overlooking.
She noted that while the committee was currently stuck with examining the 2019 Auditor General’s report, she and other members will take this matter up for discussion at the next PAC meeting.
The project comes under the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development and in July of 2021, the bids were opened. Four companies – Bulkan Timber Works Inc ($349,595,065), St8ment Investment Inc ($346,327,748), Orin’s Supreme Enterprise ($348,726,772), and A Nazir & Son Contracting & General Supplies ($340,549,671) – tendered for the project.
St8ment, with the second-lowest bid, was awarded the contract which was signed by the principals of the company and Region 10 Regional Executive Officer (REO) Dwight John.
Stabroek News had reported that the $346 million contract for the construction of the school was given a 20-month lifespan in November 2021 and was expected to be completed in July of 2023. However, since the contractors were not able to finish the project on time, a new deadline was set based on an explanation and request by the contractor.
The new deadline, November 16, 2023, has also not been met.
St8ment Investment Inc, whose principals are Rawle Ferguson and Kerwin Bollers of Hits and Jams Entertainment along with Aubrey ‘Shanghai’ Major and Kashif Muhammed of the Kashif and Shanghai football tournament, was formed just a few months before bidding for the project and had no proven construction background.
