– contracts to go through national procurement system

THE Mayor and City Council is set to receive another $300 million for the Georgetown Restoration Programme in the 2019 national budget and the Ministry of Communities (MoC) hopes that having the contracts for the programme go through the national procurement system will curtail certain accountability issues that the fund has been plagued with in the past.

Town Clerk Royston King has been known to award multi-million dollar works at City Hall without the issuing of contracts, and extended the same protocol in the issuing of contracts for the programme, which has had some $700 million injected into it since 2015.
The auditor general in his annual report flagged several accountability issues with the $500 million allotted between 2015 and 2016, including irregularities in the awarding of the contracts.

One contractor–XL Engineering–has come forward to say that they are still owed millions on a contract they had obtained through the programme. There are other questions surrounding the procurement process and how contracts were awarded.
There is at least one case of a single contractor being awarded 12 contracts totalling $21 million, despite the fact that there was a stipulation of a maximum four contracts per contractor.

To avert further cases of this in 2019, the Ministry of Communities promises to utilise the national procurement system, which has policies governing public sector procurement.
“The Ministry of Communities will execute the project using the national procurement system, that way ensuring the procurement system is followed and all engineering standards are met for the execution of the project,” related MoC Permanent Secretary, Emil McGarrell.

“City Council will identify the project and the government along with the city engineer will prepare the tender document and it will be tendered at the national level; and it will be awarded at the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board.”

The programme had incremental disbursements of $300 million in 2015, $200 million in 2016 and $200 million in 2018. No money was allocated in 2017.

From the 2016 allocation, the council could not produce any evidence accounting for some $70.489 million out of the $200 million given to them; prior to that, in the 2015 allocation there was no evidence of payments totalling $12.816M.

According to a 2016 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the ministry and the council, the $200 million was scheduled to be spread across a number of rehabilitation projects, including works at the Kitty Market, the Constabulary Training School and headquarters building, City Engineer’s building, and the Albouystown Clinic, as well as the purchase of office materials, equipment and furnishings.

The council failed to comply with special conditions of the MoU which specified that the council was expected to use a special commercial bank account to “keep the financial resources’. The ministry was also expected to authorise all payments charged under this account, but all transactions were authorised by the council. A master inventory was also not maintained.

In 2015, of $300 million, some $52 million was allocated for de-bushing of Le Repentir Cemetery and $6.2 million was scheduled for the purchase of a vehicle, while $241.637 million went to the Georgetown restoration project. The auditor general concluded that the restoration grant to the council was not utilised as intended.

Of note is the fact that though the M&CC was called to account for $241.637 million, they submitted payment vouchers totalling $247.558 million, $5.921 million more than what they were given.

Additionally, though the city treasurer is required to certify all payments by the council, the city treasurer’s approval was not present on seven vouchers totalling $8 million. Payment vouchers totalling $30 million did not have the Finance Committee’s full approval. The Finance Committee’s approval is another requirement for the validation of payments by the council.