–made full payment of $123M before items were delivered
–Deputy Commissioner Brutus says contract was awarded at Cabinet level
THE Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Monday discovered that the Guyana Police Force (GPF) breached the Procurement Act in 2019 during the tenure of the APNU+AFC administration, by paying some $123.34 million as a full contract sum to a supplier before any items were delivered.

This was brought to light as the PAC examined the Auditor General’s Report for 2019 on the former Ministry of Public Security, now Ministry of Home Affairs.
It was stated in the report that four contracts totalling $123.344 million were awarded to the one supplier in December 2019, and the full contract sum was paid to the supplier in January 2020 before items were supplied; this was in breach of the conditions of the contracts.

Further, the supplier did not supply the items within the stipulated time as it was stated that as of early October 2020, items totalling $36.91 million were still outstanding.
As such, agency representatives were questioned as to who this supplier was, among other things. In response, Deputy Police Commissioner (Administration), Calvin Brutus told the committee that the company that was awarded the contracts was MS Trading and further added that the awards were at the Cabinet level.

Brutus, who was not in that position at the time, went on to add that the items were subsequently supplied, but he believes there was the issue of the global pandemic which had impacted shipping.
Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira, in addressing the issue, said: “The gravamen isn’t just the late supply… the gravamen in terms of procurement is that the supplier was paid up front the entire cost of the contract without delivering anything, so there are two breaches that took place.”

She went on to add that the law stipulates what percentage is to be paid to suppliers based on the type of contract, and what is retained for final delivery and in some cases defects liability.
Additionally, Teixeira said that having paid all the money, the police had nothing to hold on to, but had to wait until the supplier was able to deliver; this, she said, is the reason that all funds are not paid up front.
“That was a breach of the Procurement Act,” Teixeira lamented.

Added to this, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Mae Toussaint Jr. Thomas, agreed with the minister and said that it was indeed a clear breach of the procurement system and added that that system is no longer in place.
She went on to state that the items were delivered and that record will be provided to the committee. The Permanent Secretary further said that it appeared to be an oversight by Brutus’ predecessor.