THE Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Shalimar Ali-Hack, SC, has filed an appeal challenging the dismissal of fraud charges against David Patterson, the former Public Infrastructure Minister under the previous A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) government, and Rawlston Adams, the former General Manager of the Demerara Harbour Bridge Corporation (DHBC).

The joint charge stemmed from an alleged conspiracy to defraud DHBC of $162,635,015 between November 18, 2016, and February 1, 2018, as part of a feasibility study for a new Demerara River bridge. Patterson and Adams were accused of conspiring with each other and unidentified individuals to misappropriate funds from the corporation’s asphalt plant account for a project that fell outside the DHBC’s mandate.

On January 17, 2025, Senior Magistrate Leron Daly of the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts ruled that there was insufficient evidence to support allegations of a fraudulent agreement between Patterson and Adams. Consequently, both were found not guilty of the charge.

In response to the ruling, the DPP has filed a Notice of Appeal with the Court of Appeal requesting that the decision be overturned.

Additionally, the DPP seeks an order for Patterson and Adams to bear the costs of the appeal. The court has yet to set a date for the hearing of this case.

The fraud allegations were triggered by findings from the Public Procurement Commission (PPC), which investigated the Auditor General’s Report for the 2016 fiscal year.
The report revealed that the then Ministry of Public Infrastructure (MoPI) had violated the Procurement Act by awarding a contract in 2016 to LievenseCSO Engineering Contracting BV, a Dutch company, for the feasibility study and design of the new bridge, bypassing the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board’s (NPTAB) recommendation to retender the project.

Despite the irregularities, the MoPI, under Patterson’s leadership, defended the decision to sole-source the contract, citing the urgency of completing the bridge and asserting that Cabinet had approved the selection of LievenseCSO.

The Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) later launched an investigation into the matter, leading to the charges against Patterson and Adams in January 2021. Both men were granted bail in the amount of $200,000 pending the trial’s outcome.

The PPC’s 12-page report, titled Investigation into the Procurement of Consultancy Services for the Feasibility Study and Design of the New Demerara River Bridge, concluded: “Based on practice, this award of a contract…to LIEVENSECSO ENGINEERING CONTRACTING BV, by the DHBC, should have been administered by the NPTAB. If, indeed, the MoPI had considered that this project was under its purview, the same requirements would have been applicable.”

According to the PPC, Section 17 subsection 1 of the Procurement Act states that NPTAB is responsible for exercising jurisdiction over tenders which exceed the amounts prescribed in the procurement regulations. The regulations state that, for the MoPI, consultancy projects that cost in excess $5 million must be administered by the NPTAB, the PPC noted.