-says wasn’t paid for extra work
Mohamed’s Enterprise is disputing the $858.7 million bid the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) said it made for the Guyana Fire Service (GFS) Headquarters contract, saying its bidding and contract documents and receipts shows it bid $614 million and was only paid that amount.
The company also says that it did some $200 million in additional works on the project and this was rejected by the Ministry of Home Affairs, although its receipts and works were cleared by engineers. And although the ministry said it would pay $21 million of the $200 million sum, it did not honour that amount, as to date, they have not received “a blind cent.”
“I signed for $614 million, was paid $614 million, [and] did $202 million in extra work. The min [ministry] refused to even discuss it…,” Nazar Mohamed of Mohamed’s Enterprise told Stabroek News following a story published in Sunday’s edition that stated he had bid $210 million above the engineer’s estimate for the contract to build the GFS Headquarters.
“I can make available the whole file; the contract documents, all the documents for the variation works, all the receipts of payments and everything as it relates to that fire station issue,” he added.
Contacted for comment, NPTAB Chief Executive Officer, Arvin Parag, on Monday said that the agency would issue a release on the issue. Yesterday, he again said that a release would be provided but up to press time this was not available. The bid figure on the NPTAB’s website is $858.7m.
When tenders are opened at the NPTAB, all bidders and the media can be present and the respective company’s bids are called out by an employee of the agency and logged in its records. Companies’ representatives would usually take all of the information for all of the companies. If there is a disparity in the information announced and what the company submitted, its representative can object, but the sums stated on the bidding documents are nonetheless logged.
Breaking his silence since the sanctions, Mohamed said that the public gets the impression that his bid was way above the Engineer’s Estimate and he was given the contract for $858.7 million when all evidence and documents shows this is not the case.
“… $614 million I bid for the contract, I signed the contract for that amount of money. I was paid that amount of money. You know, I did a lot of variation work, over $200 million in variation works. The government had two engineers on that project and they would always tell me to do this, do that. A fifty-feet trench, you know I throw in loads of sand and made it into a 10 feet trench. I built a reservoir inside of the trench. I concrete the whole yard. Minister had a mesh fence in the front, I put a proper fence at the front so the place can look proper,” he stated.
Stormed
“When we had the meeting, as it relates to the variation works, they had a full room; the head of the Fire Station, the Head of the Police Force, Ministry people, the PS, my team. Mr. Benn had people there and the Minister was not nice. He stormed out of the meeting and said he would not honour this and he would not pay this and he was not informed of this. I said, Minister it is not my duty to inform you. It is the duty of your engineers. You had two engineers on the project. It was not a very nice scene and he left,” he added.
Mohamed said that earlier this year, he had a meeting with the new Permanent Secretary (PS) of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Andre Ally enquiring about the project but that has not yielded any subsequent payments.
“I had one meeting with this new PS about six months ago, he had the engineers there and he said that he is new and not familiar with the matter but would enquire. Then they said they will pay $21 million of the $200 million and up to today I never get. I told the Minister in front of the PS, “Sir, if you want to pay you pay. If you don’t want to, then that that is fine.’ I completed the work. I think I did a good job and I finished with that. I wasn’t even paid $21 million [and] they said they would pay for all $200 million variation works. And that was it. I lost on that project, but you know, that is what life is all about,” he said.
For minutes of the tender opening for October 26, 2021, the NPTAB has that Mohamed’s bid was some $858.7 million while the Engineer’s Estimate was $648M, (see https://www.npta.gov.gy/wp-content/uploads/Tender-Evaluation-Details-October-26-2021-1.pdf)
Father and son businessmen, Nazar Mohamed and Azruddin Mohamed, along with the former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Mae Toussaint Jr Thomas, were last month sanctioned by the United States Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for corruption.
Toussaint Jr Thomas was the Permanent Secretary in 2021, at the time the $614 estimated million project was awarded to the Mohameds for the construction of the new Guyana Fire Service headquarters on Homestretch Avenue, in Georgetown, and for one lot of work at the Lusignan prison. Prior to these contracts Mohamed’s Enterprise had not engaged in this type of construction work.
Whenever challenged about allegations of procurement fraud, the PPP/C government and NPTAB have typically raised the argument that the lowest evaluated bidder had won the contract.
One of the key contentions in the US sanctions in relation to Toussaint Jr Thomas was that contracts had been steered to the Mohameds in return for benefits Neither the Mohameds nor Toussaint Jr Thomas have commented on the US sanctions or the ensuing reports.
While the government here has been informed by the US Government that it could write to the Department of Justice for information on what led to the sanctions, analysts here point out that they can use readily available information in the procurement system and then question the Mohameds and Toussaint Jr Thomas.
One other contract had been awarded to Mohamed’s Enterprise during Toussaint Jr Thomas tenure. This was in relation to one lot of works at the Lusignan Prison. Based on the information seen by Stabroek News, Mohamed’s Enterprise entered a consolidated bid for all three lots of $1,071,777,483 which would have nearly matched the aggregated engineer’s estimate for all three lots. In the end, Mohamed’s Enterprise was only awarded one of the three lots.
Concerning the Lusignan contract, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said that Mohamed’s Enterprise had the most responsive bids of all three, but that a decision was taken to award the other two contractors, because of capacity.
Jagdeo had said that the contracts were awarded through the public tendering process and were not issued through single sourcing or handpicked selections, and that the Mohameds won based on the fact that they were the most responsive bidder. This is notwithstanding that they hadn’t constructed such buildings before.
