Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo on Friday waded into Opposition Leader Joseph Harmon, saying that he is unfit to lecture the current People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Administration or anyone, about proper procurement procedures. 
“Harmon can’t testify to anything that is proper and legal,” Jagdeo asserted during a press conference at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre.
Jagdeo reminded that Harmon was a member of the NICIL Board when that agency transferred “hundreds of acres of lands, worth billions of dollars”, to certain persons under questionable circumstances.
“So he now wants to give testimony as to who should be on the Tender Board and who should not be, when they just destroyed an entire system of procurement.”
Harmon, during a virtual press conference earlier on Friday, sought to criticise the current Government for the changes made to the Tender Board and more particularly the public procurement process.
However, Jagdeo maintained that under the previous APNU/AFC Administration, several laws governing the public procurement procedures were breached.
He cited, for example, that the APNU/AFC had stopped putting up the awards on the procurement website, which, he said, is a requirement of the law. He also noted that the APNU/AFC Government had raised the limits to Ministerial Tender Boards.
The Vice President further claimed that billions of dollars’ worth of contracts were given out over the five-year period; even in 2019 when the APNU/AFC did not have the authority to do so.
“Contrary to the law, they awarded contracts, billions of dollars, that led to massive rollovers into 2020, illegally so,” Jagdeo claimed.
He also referred to coalition supporter Ulita Moore being awarded contracts in some of the Ministries, without going through any tendering system.
Jagdeo further highlighted that under the PPP/C, a law was passed that prohibits Cabinet from awarding contracts. Under this law, he said, Cabinet only has a no-objection role, “but they (APNU/AFC) reversed that and started awarding contracts, contrary to the law”.
