THE Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, on Monday, heard that there were breaches in the country’s procurement regulations by the regional administration for Region One in 2019 during the APNU+AFC’s tenure in office.
This came to light as the committee examined the Auditor General’s reports for 2019, which indicated that sections of the Procurement Act were breached as the Regional Democratic Council used the three-quote method of procurement for ten contracts totalling $60.567 million.

The report noted that according to regulations made under the country’s procurement act, “The threshold foreseen in Section 27 (1) of the act for use of the request for quotations method for procurement shall be $3,000,000.”
With that, it was stated that the purchases to the tune of $60.5 million should have been publicly advertised and adjudicated by the regional tender board as the value exceeded the limit of $3 million.

Against this backdrop, government member of the committee and Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill asked the regional officials about the minutes of the regional tender board to ascertain the reason this breach occurred.
In response, the Regional Executive Officer, Mr. Sewchand stated that since assuming the post earlier this year and prior to coming before the PAC, he checked for the relevant documents and was not able to retrieve same.
Moreover, he emphasised that he has implemented strategies to ensure the adoption of the most effective procurement method for the provision of goods and services since assuming office.

With that, Edghill asked, “Now if the three-quote method was being used, there’s a limit, could you say why or have you been advised because you weren’t the REO at the time? I’m sure knowing you’re coming here you would have asked some questions to see if you could get answers here, could you say why this occurred and what were these projects for? So let us hear the emergency nature of them why we break the rules.”
Sewchand noted that his efforts to contact the previous REO to inquire about the procurement proved futile.

However, as a result, the committee asked the assistance of the auditor general’s office and whether during the audit process they were able to find the contracts for the projects.
The representative present at the PAC while noting that they were not in possession of the contracts, said that the $60.5 million catered for the procurement of generators, purchase of medical equipment and electrical hardware among other things.
Edghill said, “So it is a clear case where most of these purchases were part of the region’s capital budget at the time of the appropriation act [and] these were included in the region’s budget for acquisition. So why didn’t we advertise and follow the process.”
With that, he noted that as highlighted in the audit report, this also happened in 2018 in four instances and as such indicated that this appeared to be a systemic problem.
As such, the REO was asked to seek the assistance of members of the tender board in 2019 and the assistance of the former REO and return to the PAC in a few weeks.