Forensic lab: APNU/AFC failed to take legal action against contractor for non-delivery of equipment

…despite AG’s recommendations 5 years ago

Despite the Audit Office of Guyana recommending legal action five years ago against a contractor who reneged on his contract to deliver equipment for the Forensic Laboratory, no legal action has been taken against the contractor.
This was revealed at the sitting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Monday, which followed up on issues that were red flagged by Auditor General Deodat Sharma in his 2016 Report.

One of the issues was an agreement the then Public Security Ministry signed with an overseas supplier, who was contracted to procure $21.9 million worth of equipment for the Forensic Laboratory at Turkeyen, East Coast Demerara (ECD).
The supplier was paid $9.974 million in 2017, but only supplied $3.191 million in forensic laboratory materials. This left materials with a value of $6.783 million that were not delivered. The Auditor General had recommended in his 2016 report that the then Public Security Ministry take legal action against the contractor.
When PAC member Dharamkumar Seeraj enquired on Monday whether this was ever done, Principal Assistant Secretary for Finance at the renamed Ministry of Home Affairs, Meyers, replied in the negative.
“If no legal action was taken, can the PAC be informed if the items in question, if they were subsequently delivered?” Seeraj then asked.
“Items to the value of $12.8 million were delivered. The Ministry would have subsequently applied liquidated damages and terminated the contract,” Head Accountant Meyers further explained.
Liquidated damages are a contractual provision that allows an affected party to claim a sum of money in the case of a breach of contract. They are non-punitive; unlike the damages a court may have awarded for the breach had the Ministry taken legal action.
Another observation that was made by the Auditor General was the presence of three cheques, to the value of $11.955 million, that remained on hand at the Ministry. In fact, two of these cheques totaling $10.961 million had become stale dated.
A stale dated cheque is one that has been kept on hand past a stipulated time after it was written. According to the Auditor General, the Ministry of Public Security was therefore in breach of the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act (FMAA) and the Procurement Act 2003. It was recommended that these cheques be updated and refunded to the Consolidated Fund.
The $1.049 billion Guyana Forensic Science Laboratory (GFSL) was opened since July 2014, but only received the requisite tools to be fully able to conduct DNA testing in 2019.
When the building was first commissioned it had four departments including toxicology, documents, trace evidence and chemistry with six non-analytical departments namely security, quality system, information system, facilities operations, evidence and administration departments.
Following its launch, however, the GFSL opened two other departments, namely the Forensic Radio Evidence and the DNA aspect which was commissioned in June of 2019. At the time of the commissioning, the lab’s Director Delon France had listed the newly added features.
“The laboratory is now a national pioneer for human identification using Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) testing and it enables us to conduct three main things: DNA testing for comparison or matching evidence to a suspect, paternity testing, family mapping or family testing where you can use the family DNA to identify a suspect even if we don’t have that particular suspect’s DNA. We can match a crime scene to a family member and then we can narrow it down through investigation of who actually committed the crime,” he had explained. (G3)