– calls on that newspaper to desist from its displayed tendency to misrepresent and distort
THE People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has taken careful note of the story carried in Kaieteur News of 08th Feb, 2011, which tried to insinuate some appearance of secrecy in relation to Government contracts and then further tried to insinuate a link with corruption. The Party, in a statement yesterday, said it wishes to reject fully the insinuations contained in the story. The PPP noted that since it came into office in 1992, one of the first things it did was to begin to tender for goods and services and created an open system.

“The Kaieteur News seems to have political motives and, to achieve these, the paper is resorting to every underhand tactic including distortions,” the party charged.

“This campaign appears to be built around the mistaken belief that if a lie is repeated often enough, someone will actually start thinking that lie to be true. Hence, the obsession with repeating unfounded and unsubstantiated allegations of corruption, with the hope that at some point in time, these allegations would be accepted as the truth,” the PPP stated.

On the matter of secrecy, the party said it is totally untrue to suggest that there is secrecy surrounding Government contracts.

“This PPP/Civic Government prides itself on its record when it comes to publicly advertising the tender for contracts, publicly announcing the identity of the winning bids, and the openness of the entire tendering process,” the party said.

It noted that detailed specifications for any Government contract can be found in the tender documents which are available to all persons who would have uplifted bid documents (or purchased bid documents, in instances where those documents are for sale), and anyone may do so. If anyone wishes to know the specifications being tendered they simply have to uplift or purchase the tender documents and examine them.

Once tender documents are uplifted, tenders are then submitted in a sealed box and tender openings are public events, at which all bidders are free to attend and, indeed, any other interested party is free to attend. In fact, Guyana has the distinction of being one of the few jurisdictions where the media routinely attends the opening of tenders, and reports publicly on bids received, and this is a good thing for transparency and accountability, the PPP pointed out.
It said this public opening of tenders and the presence of the media at tender openings are “initiatives introduced by and promoted actively by this Party in Government, reflective of our commitment to openness and transparency”.

“Any suggestion of secrecy surrounding Government contracts would have to be a hark back to the era of the PNC in Government when no public tendering was done, and when there was no accountability by the administration,” the PPP stated.

“Our Party therefore rejects out of hand the ridiculous insinuations of Kaieteur News, and calls on that newspaper to desist from its displayed tendency to misrepresent and distort,” the PPP added.