AN audit into the controversial purchase of three motion-scales valued at $72.2 million has been completed, and according to Public Works Minister, Juan Edghill, investigations found that the former government purchased the equipment from a company headed by one of its associates.
“The company that the Ministry of Public Infrastructure bought the scales from is a company that is directly linked to Mr. Alston Stewart,” Edghill told the Sunday Chronicle.

He said that this was just one of the many findings of an audit into the questionable purchase of the scales. Edghill reminded too that Stewart is the Jamaican national who was instrumental in cementing the coalition of the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC), leading up to the 2015 General and Regional Elections.

In January, the purchase engaged the attention of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), having been flagged in the Auditor General’s Report for that year.

At the meeting, Vladim Persaud, the relatively new Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Public Infrastructure, now renamed the Ministry of Public Works, said that the scales were purchased from a Jamaican company named NevPro Realization Limited.
He explained that two of the scales were shipped to Guyana and have remained in a storage bond at a local wharf. Four years have passed and the scales are yet to be delivered to the Government of Guyana.

Persaud had informed the PAC that several attempts were made to contact the supplier, but authorities under the new People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government have not had any success in locating the company.
“It seems as though they have come off the face of the earth. We can’t find any information of the company,” Persaud informed the parliamentary committee.

The PAC, in its inquiries, heard that the contract was signed by former Permanent Secretary, Balraj Balram, and that it contained no dates, bore no witness signatures, nor displayed the verification number from the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB).

Even more glaring was the fact that the contract was signed even before Cabinet had approved the purchase. Balram, upon being questioned by the PAC, was unable to provide answers on the undertaking, defending that it had been five years since the contract was signed.

The 2016 audit report also indicated that “a performance bond was not presented for audit examination”. It also stated that as of September 2017, the scales, which had a 90-day delivery period attached to it, had still not been delivered. This remains the case in 2021.
The purchase of the devices was made under the Ministry’s Equipment/tools line item.

The contract provided for an advance payment of 50 per cent of the contract sum within 30 days of signing of the contract and the balance on delivery,” the report specified. However, it was reported that as at December 31, 2016, the contract sum was paid in full.

The Auditor General’s report also pointed to the lack of any evidence that an addendum to the contract was ever prepared. In its official response to the Audit Office, the ministry, then led by David Patterson, said that the observations were all correct and that the ministry was working to remedy the situation.

Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira, had referred to the situation as being unacceptable, expressing dissatisfaction that no disciplinary actions were taken against those responsible for the botched purchase.
“There has been no calling in of anybody to investigate, even the police. There has been no lawyer’s letter… I can’t understand a Ministry being so indulgent,” she had said.

Minister Teixeira reasoned that the then National Procurement and Tender Administration Board could not have awarded the contract without the no-objection from the then David Granger Cabinet.

Media reports have indicated that in 2018, the then Ministry of Public Infrastructure paid $10 million in value-added tax to the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) for the two scales. However, the cheque was rejected as the GRA had just adopted the new integrated customs management system, ASCUDA World.

The three motion-scales were sourced to be placed in sections of the country where there were roads prone to damage by overweight vehicles.