Dear Editor,
I was moved to write this letter: to highlight to the Government and peoples of this country the practice of low-tendering, and the way it is abused by some contractors.
I was inspired to do this piece after reading a daunting headline in a national newspaper, “Shoddy Work…emergency works for Sand Creek Secondary”, on Tuesday, 8th August, 2017.
This writer is a proud and loyal tax-paying citizen, and so I found this to be extremely annoying, disappointing, and even painful. It is unfair to us, as citizens of this country, to receive such haphazard work from contractors. Moreover, I wish to list some of my concerns that cause contractors to underperform in such projects.
Firstly, in both the previous and current Governments, there definitely appears to be a certain level of corruption and favouritism in the system of tendering. This infiltrates the entire process (transparency and accountability), and in some cases translates into the termination of genuinely awarded contracts so confederates of those in power can be awarded the contracts.
I am currently in possession of damning and deadly evidence that could prove extremely embarrassing to the Government of the day. However, I have not released this to the public just yet.
Further, the policy of tendering usually dictates that the lowest compliant tenderer wins. This is where the danger lies, because if contractors will tender the lowest cost possible for infrastructural and capital works, it is sometimes confusing to my mind that the evaluators, the Cabinet and/or the Ministry cannot understand that this will usually reflect low quality/shoddy work.
In the case of security services, one stands bewildered as to how the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB), the ministries’ evaluators and others involved can award tenders at times to certain security firms when it is obvious that they: will recourse to improper payments (underpayment of workers); lack the proper supervisory and training programmes, which are costly; and would resort to theft of taxes. For security tenders and others which are tendered extremely low for awards, some contractors are known to be involved in the large scale theft of Value Added Taxes (VAT).
I thought it pertinent once again, as I have been doing over the years, to showcase the gaps in the tendering system that contractors have taking advantage of relentlessly. In the previous and current administrations, there have been clear instances of corruption and manipulation. I hope that the ‘powers that be’ look at this observation very seriously. I would advise that an investigation be launched into such areas which are being exploited by dishonest contractors both in the construction field and the security industry.
Yours sincerely,
Roshan Khan Snr
