Work appears to have started on a second pump station project awarded controversially amid concerns over the eligibility of the contractors.
To date, the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) has not addressed the propriety of the award for the Pouderoyen Pump Station which was contracted for $981 million to Spectre Construction or another for the Belle Vue pump station which was assigned to Tepui Inc.
Neither should have been awarded pump station contracts as they did not meet eligibility requirements.
When this newspaper visited the Pouderoyen site on the West Bank Demerara yesterday, the pathway to the Pump Station was paved with loam and sand followed by heaps of mud on the western side of the project.
The Sunday Stabroek, based on a conversation with a bobcat operator, ascertained that more loam was expected to arrive at the location. There was no sign of the contractor.
On November 13 last year, this newspaper reported that Spectre Construction Company, which has been awarded the contract had refused to respond to questions concerning the award of the contract.
Director of the company Dominic Yan had stated that he would not be part of any “propaganda”.
He was asked when the company was registered and how many contracts of a similar nature had it undertaken. He was also asked about the company’s experience in constructing pump stations, when the contract was awarded and what was the timeframe for completion.
Yan did not respond to any of the questions. Instead, he said, “I thought your interview was going in a different direction. I didn’t know that was what you wanted from the interview. I thought you wanted to know about the project. I don’t know that you are bringing politics into this. I’m sorry, I don’t want to participate in that kind of interview. I thought you were interested in the project and not propaganda.”
Opposition Member of Parliament Ganesh Mahipaul had written to the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) on October 9 last year to request an investigation into the awarding of the contract for the Pouderoyen Pump Station.
“You would have recalled that I wrote the PPC requesting an investigation on how the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) operated concerning the award of the Pouderoyen Pump Station Contract and also the other and David Patterson wrote on the one that Tepui Group Inc got and the reason behind, it’s because the information they gave us publicly did not sync with the fact that the award has to go to the lowest most responsive bidder. But the issue facing this nation is greater than that one award. A lot of the awards that were made by NPTAB are coming into question based on them not going to the most responsive bidder and there is a clear need for us to zoom in and zone in on how NPTAB is operating in conjunction with the procuring entities,” Mahipaul had told this newspaper.
The Ministry of Agriculture’s National Drainage and Authority (NDIA) was the procuring entity, and bids for the project were opened on June 27 last year it received 23 tenders.
The winning company – Spectre – has had much smaller government contracts awarded before and these include the construction of a sidewalk for the University of Guyana in 2022. Questions have also been raised about the quality of the work that was done on the sidewalk.
With the Ministry of Local Government being the procuring entity, Spectre also won a contract in June 2022 to construct a two-storey building within the Eccles Health Centre and that project was pegged at $31.4 million.
Former Auditor General Anand Goolsarran had pointed out that there had been no public mention of the Pouderoyen pump station, and who it was awarded to. It was after questions were raised in the media it was revealed that Spectre had secured the project.
Meanwhile, despite concerns over the propriety of the $865 million contract to build a pump station at Belle Vue, West Bank Demerara work has also begun there.
The Sunday Stabroek visited the site on March 30th and saw evidence of preliminary works.
The Tepui Group, in which social media personality Mikhail Rodrigues, known as “Guyanese Critic”, is a principal, had been awarded the contract by the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB). This led to complaints that it was unqualified and did not have the wherewithal for the project. A complaint was then lodged with the Public Procurement Commission.
The Sunday Stabroek on March 30th observed several workers from Tepui Group Inc painting the piles for the pump station and an excavator bearing the company’s logo was in operation on the work site.
This newspaper attempted to get details from Rodrigues but was curtly told that “he has nothing to say to Stabroek News”.
