The Ministry of Communities on Friday invited several small contractors to discuss their missteps in the tendering process.

The contractors were among those who bid for a number of nine projects, seven of which were non-responsive, a release from the Ministry of Communities noted. The group met with Permanent Secretary (PS), Emil McGarrell and Procurement Manager, Michael Blackman in the boardroom of the Ministry’s Fort Street, Kingston office.

According to the release, the PS urged the contractors to build their capacity to perform not only small contracts but much larger ones. However, he noted that the work must be of a very high standard and must be done accurately.

The PS further urged the contractors to set their own standards and core values that would guide their company during the tendering process and stated that all of the tenders failed due to simple administrative lapses such as forgetting to include the business registration.

“We put out a tender for which you responded but unfortunately everybody failed to meet the criteria. This is for the administrative aspect and not the technical aspect,” the PS was quoted as saying in the release.

The release further noted that some of the contractors failed to submit a valid registration, National Insurance Scheme (NIS) and Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) compliance while others did not complete the tender documents or failed to attach a signature to the bid declaration form.

Other tenders were deemed non-responsive due to a failure to indicate whether they are engaged in litigation, whether they are involved in ongoing projects and for failing to provide a list of equipment.

The ministry advertised for nine projects but seven of these would have to be retendered. As such the ministry saw it fit to engage the contractors to bring them up to speed with the procurement process and its guidelines.

The PS stressed that there was no question as to the technical capabilities of the contractors but all the hiccups were avoidable and of an administrative nature.

He explained the tender process and answered questions from all of the contractors. They were informed that the law requires the ministry to give notification of the responsiveness of each bids and they also have a right to request the reason for their non-responsiveness.

The contractors were informed that they all will be allowed to re-tender and once compliant, seven of them, would each received a project.