Dear Editor,
It seems like since the release of the ‘Tepui Summary of Findings’ by the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) on April 16, 2024, not a day has passed without Stabroek News finding space in its publication to attack the PPC, particularly those it deems to be “government selected commissioners” [Editorial April 29, 2024].
The Government does not select commissioners to the PPC. Commissioners are appointed pursuant to Article 212X(2) after having been nominated by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and approved by no less than 2/3 of elected members of the National Assembly (that would include both Government and opposition in the current make-up). Such is the type of basic misinformation, misrepresentation and misleading statements which have permeated the self- professed reputable Stabroek News.
That aside, what strips Stabroek News of all pretence is its selective outrage at the length of time investigations take to be completed. For example, lest we forget, in 2018, then Opposition Member of Parliament (M.P), Gail Teixeira (the complainant) had written to the PPC enquiring into the status of a “request for review of award of contract for the consultancy for the feasibility study and designs for the new Demerara River Crossing/Bridge”. According to that correspondence, the complaint was made to the PPC in September 2017. Other than the acknowledgement letter from the PPC, the complainant received no further communication from the PPC until nine months later when the complainant wrote a follow-up letter. Consequently, that investigation took almost one (1) year to be completed.
Another worthwhile example is contained in a Stabroek News article dated November 5, 2018, in relation to the “HDM Labs drug deal”. In that article, it was reported that according to the former PPC Chairperson… “the PPC’s investigation is expected to be completed in about two weeks, and like all of the cases the PPC reviews, the findings will be posted to their website for public perusal”. It would be interesting to note that the said investigation into the HDM drug deal that the [former] PPC had publicly undertook to do, was never done.
This now begs the question: where is/was the outrage by Stabroek News? On one hand, the previous PPC publicly undertook to conduct an investigation into a matter, which was never done, and on the other hand, another investigation took one (1) year to be completed.
Stabroek News is now selectively hammering and regurgitating a single issue, which the PPC undertook to do publicly and that was completed in half the time in contrast to its predecessors. It is worth noting that although it was done in record time in contrast to its predecessors, the current PPC nonetheless acknowledged impacts to the completion of its work, stated the causation and recommended remedial measures for same, all of which were duly ignored by the Stabroek News. (See reference to recommendation XII of the ‘Tepui Summary of Findings’).
Be that as it may, the constant attacks on the PPC on a daily basis by Stabroek News have no merit whatsoever. And this is outside of the fact that Stabroek News reported a number of inaccuracies in relation to the Tepui Summary of Findings Report, which will be dealt with separately.
Sincerely,
Joel Bhagwandin
Commissioner, PPC
Editor’s note: Not to put too fine a point on it, at the Public Accounts Committee, three nominations were made by the government side and two by the opposition. Following agreement by the two sides these names were then presented to the National Assembly for approval. Stabroek News did report on some of the recommended remedial measures and factors that impacted the completion of the PPC’s work in the Tepui case.
