The absence of any oversight committee or monitoring organization to safeguard the colossal sums being expended on projects, primarily on infra-structure construction, has paved the way for the thieving of massive sums of taxpayers’ money. Recently, during a sitting of the Public Accounts Committee, one of the longest serving PPP executive, the Hon. Gail Teixeira, pointedly disclosed, that tens of millions cannot be accounted for in regards to the purchase of drugs for Region 2. Former Regional Executive Officer (REO) of Region 2, Denis Jaikaran, was on Monday unable to provide answers to the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) how several contracts valuing $63.188 million was awarded without going through the public tendering process under his tenure.
But this is an all too familiar scenario. A 413 million contract (awarded by Coalition Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson) to S. Maraj Contracting Services to repair the Leguan Stelling and to be completed by June 2019 went belly-up in 2021. Presently, the same ministry, now headed by Juan Edgehill, through regime change, is moving to terminate a multimillion dollar contract awarded to Kalco Guyana Incorporated for the incompletion of the Conversation Tree to Dennis Street Road project. The St. Roses High School Project, awarded by the Coalition, barely took off: now the PPP is seeking to recover millions prepaid to the contractor. The Specialty Hospital contract, awarded to an Indian firm, (Surendra Contracting) witnessed a 200 million heist as the contractor simply disappeared. Tragically, the bond produced was fake and one wonders how the erudite Attorney General, Hon. Anil Nandlal,l failed to verify this precious ‘piece of paper’
Four months ago the British firm HIS Markit uncovered $MUS214 unaccounted expenses by EXXON; a figure mysteriously reduced to US$3! Incidentally, while the topic of accountability is in public domain it is prudent to question why no investigation was ever undertaken in the CLICO Insurance bankruptcy nor the white elephant Skeldon Sugar Factory disaster; notwithstanding, there has never been an audit for the construction of the Marriot Hotel.
The frequency of misappropriation and non-accountability of the peoples’ money leaves no doubt that government officials–both past and present- have connived in the theft of state funds with a well-executed modus operandi. Is there no fit and proper agency to investigate this whopping embezzlement? No one has been investigated or charged for such corrupt practices. There is no recourse to recover monies lost in this proliferation of failed projects as the courts have displayed more bark than bite. Unlike developed democracies, not a single official has been found guilty of theft of state funds and even though a preponderance of evidence have been unearthed the lengthy and bungling judicial process always favor the overladen pockets of the bandits, a litany of clumsy procedures that has become Guyana’s foremost conundrum. To be critical, persons who never built a shelf in their house or a fowl pen are chosen to build a M$800 pump station. Meanwhile, the Amalia Falls fiasco was the work of the chief honcho and de-facto president who awarded such a huge contract to someone who never built a concrete strip; no wonder this contract flipped !
Guyana is faced with the Orwellian task of choosing between good and bad leaders as the conclusion of the book Animal Farm aptly indicates: the creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but it was impossible to say which was which.
Leyland Chitlall Roopnaraine
