ACCOUNTING staff of the Ministry of Business were urged to improve their monitoring capacity for projects under the ministry, including calls for the employment of a project engineer to overlook, among other things, the Lethem industrial estate project.

According to the Audit Office of Guyana, the sum of $108.330M was budgeted for the period September-December, 2015 for the industrial development of the Region Nine town. In 2014, it was noted that a contract was awarded to a company in the area to the tune of $183M for infrastructural development works there. For both sums, $76M (2014) and $99M (2015) were paid to the contractor.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly grilled the Permanent Secretary and staff of the Ministry of Business on the project on Monday. ACAP Construction and Engineering firm, managed by one Alfred Ramsarran was contracted to undertake the project, however he has since migrated.

Permanent Secretary, Rajdai Jagernauth, told the PAC that while the project has passed its March 2017 deadline, it is in its phase two stage. She said works are undergoing in terms of the design of the industrial estate and contractors are on the ground to undertake works, such as drains and other foundation works.

Jagernauth said that in the past, there was lapses mainly regarding monitoring of the industrial site at the area. She said that the fact that the ministry does not have an engineer under its employ has contributed to the oversight of the project. The PAC questioned what moves have been made to improve monitoring of the project and according to Jagernauth, the ministry has been undertaking frequent visits to the area. While the PAC was unsatisfied with her answer, she said that for current works the ministry has acquired the services of a consultancy firm to monitor the project.

She said that the ministry had an engineer under its employ but the individual was also lax in monitoring the project. According to her, the Public Service Commission has advertised for the post, since the ministry has been without an engineer since July 2015. She said that last October the ministry advertised for persons to fill the post, however, such efforts have been unsuccessful.

Jagernauth , while admitting that she is not satisfied with the ability of the ministry to oversee projects given its inability because the ministry is not fully staffed , she noted that “ those are some of the major concerns that we have”.

She said the ministry has been engaging consultancy firms to undertake its oversight mandate of projects. Last November, the Ministry of Business noted that a new model has been chosen for the Lethem Industrial Estate, which will accommodate 70 businesses, with four of those being anchor tenants or large businesses.

Minister of Business, Dominic Gaskin, during an interview with the Government Information Agency (GINA), said the site is scheduled to be completed late this year or early in 2018. The estate was scheduled to be completed this year, but had to be reviewed because work appeared to have being done haphazardly, and the estate did not cater for small business. There were also other major identified weaknesses.