Police called in to investigate undelivered $72.2M motion scales
Guyana has been expecting the delivery of three motion scales for more than four years (Michelli.com photo)
Guyana has been expecting the delivery of three motion scales for more than four years (Michelli.com photo)

THE Guyana Police Force (GPF) has been called in to conduct a thorough investigation relating to the purchase of three motion scales which were paid for some four years ago but were never delivered to the Ministry of Public Works and, by extension, the Government of Guyana.
Minister within the Ministry of Public Works, Deodat Indar, has confirmed that the findings of a forensic audit done earlier in the year have been handed over to the police for further action.
The audit had found that the former A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) government purchased the equipment from a Jamaica-based company headed by one of its associates, Alston Stewart.

Stewart is the same Jamaican national who was instrumental in cementing the coalition of the APNU+AFC, leading up to the 2015 General and Regional Elections. In January, the questionable purchase had engaged the attention of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) having been flagged in the Auditor General’s Report for 2016.
At that 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 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 hadn’t much 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 a January 2021 sitting of the PAC.
The PAC, in its inquiries then, 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, and that he could not remember.
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 July 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, [not] even the police. There has been no lawyer’s letter… I can’t understand a Ministry being so indulgent,” she had said.
Minister Teixeira had also 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.

Added to that, media reports from 2018 indicate that 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. Minister Indar has insisted that those found culpable of mismanaging government monies will be held accountable.

So far, Patterson, the former minister under whose tenure the scales were purchased, is facing multiple criminal charges in relation to mismanagement of state finances. He is also being investigated as part of a gift-giving scandal in which he and his colleague minister, Annette Ferguson, benefited from millions of dollars’ worth of gifts given to them by the agencies under their purview.

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