By Antonio Dey
Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha on Wednesday announced that works had started on January 30th on the Belle Vue Pump station controversially awarded to the company, Tepui despite the fact that serious complaints have been made about its ineligibility for the task.
The Sunday Stabroek on Friday visited the West Demerara location but saw no sign of works being conducted.
Mustapha made the announcement to the Committee of Supply last week Wednesday during the consideration of estimates on the 2024 budget for the Ministry of Agriculture. This was following requests for updates by APNU+AFC MP Ganesh Mahipaul, on the delayed pump stations.
Communications Officer at the Ministry of Agriculture, Janelle Cameron, when contacted on the project, stated that she would have to check with the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) for an update. She later referred the Sunday Stabroek to the Head of the NDIA, Lionel Wordsworth but up to press time there had been no word from him.
Works were originally slated to begin on June 27, 2023, after the $865 million Belle Vue pump station contract was awarded to the Tepui Group Inc.
This however, attracted the attention of APNU+AFC MPs Mahipaul and David Patterson, who argued that the contract awardee did not meet the standard evaluation criteria for bidders.
Patterson, who is the Shadow Minister of Public Works, told this newspaper on Wednesday that the Public Procurement Com-mission (PPC) which is tasked with investigating the controversial contract had held its statutory meeting on Thursday, January 11, but did not provide an update on the subject.
He posited that the Procurement Commission has been evading the subject for roughly the last six months.
The former minister asserted that his decision to take legal action against the commission for dereliction of responsibilities and inaction concerning this matter of public interest is “unwavering.”
The Alliance for Change member recapped that it has been six months since the Procurement Commission vowed a thorough probe of the controversial pump station contract, but to date, nothing has come out of that investigation.
At a press conference held by his party in January of this year, Patterson said that in 2023 the PPC investigated 102 matters which were similar to contracts being awarded but did not meet the required evaluation criteria.
Contextually, Patterson said, the PPC can very well conduct a thorough investigation into the matter but chooses not to do so since the disputed company is led by social media commentator, Mikhail Rodrigues who has privileged access to Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo.
The PPC on December 4, 2023, in a press release, stated that with “regard to the Tepui matter in particular, the commission took note of the matter as one of public interest.”
The commission said that during its last meeting on December 1, 2023, having received a copy of the tender proceedings from the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) on or about November 10, 2023, it considered the Report of its Operations Department and decided to put certain matters arising from it to the procuring entity – National Drainage and Irrigation Authority – and NPTAB, for response by due process.
It said that the response would be forthcoming within the next fourteen (14) days.
Efforts since to contact the Chairperson of the PPC Pauline Chase on the subject have been unsuccessful.
This newspaper on December 31, 2023, reported that Mustapha, said that the NDIA has provided the PPC with the relevant documents and tender proceedings concerning the probe into the disputed Tepui contract award.
He gave this answer in response to a question posed by this newspaper on the issue at a year-end press briefing held at the agriculture ministry’s offices in Regent Street, Georgetown.
He made it clear that since NDIA falls under his ministry, it was incumbent upon the drainage and irrigation authority to provide the PPC with the necessary documents to complement its probe into the contentious issue at hand.
“While I don’t want to pronounce too much on the matter, I can tell you that our task is ensuring that contractors do what is right as we must receive value for our money, but we can’t dictate or manage how contracts must be awarded; NPTAB has that responsibility,” Mustapha noted.
“I ensured that those documents were sent to the Public Procurement Com-mission, so we did our part and Mr Lionel Wordsworth (of NDIA) was a witness to this,” the minister added.
The procurement commission has been accused of shirking its broad responsibilities in favour of countrywide visits and similar activities.
Stabroek News also reported that former Auditor General, Anand Goolsarran, had opined that the contract awarded to the Tepui Group was flawed, as not only should the company have been disqualified for not meeting the bidding criteria, but the NPTAB erred when it lumped two other contracts to the award.
Goolsarran explained that according to his analysis, “There has been a violation of the Procurement Act as regards the award of the contract for the construction of sluice/pump station at Belle Vue as well as the other two pump stations at Meten-Meer-Zorg and Jimbo.”
He added, “As regards the Belle Vue pump station, the system appeared to have been manipulated to facilitate the award of the contract to Tepui Group Inc.”
According to the bidding documents for the project which were opened on June 27 this year, and seen by this publication, the project was for a pump station at Belle Vue on the West Bank of Demerara.
The engineer’s estimate was also for that project alone, so NPTAB still has to explain how three awards were handed out from the same bid when the project was not divided into lots.
In response to a public advertisement last May for the construction of the sluice and pump station at Belle Vue, there were 26 bids. The highest bidder was Nabi Construction Inc with a bid price of $1,181, 867,183, while the lowest bidder was Gavco Construction & Supplies Inc with a bid price of $740,584,800. Tepui Group’s bid was $865,543,500. Seventeen other bidders had bid prices lower than that of Tepui. The Engineer’s Estimate was $779,198,584.
Following Patterson’s disclosure of his letter to the PPC, NPTAB issued a statement defending the award, contending that: 1) 13 of the 26 bids were deemed non-responsive and were therefore not considered; 2) the lowest and second lowest responsive bidders were awarded the contracts for the construction of the pump stations at Met-en-Meer-Zorg and Jimbo, respectively; and 3) Tepui was the third lowest responsive bidder and was awarded the contract for the construction of the pump station at Belle Vue.
