Dear Editor,
As we have been in operation for 38 years, we have engaged many Government Ministries, institutions, commissions and agencies where tendering for security services was required. With the genesis of the long awaited Public Procurement Commission (PPC), the undersigned, like most suppliers and Guyanese in general, expected some positive changes in the procurement process. Of recent, there are several inconsistencies, discrepancies and uncertainties that exist in the tendering system for security services. At face value, there is definitely confusion among the NPTAB, the Government procuring entities, and other State agencies where documents must be sourced for the tenders.
One case is the tender for the Ministry of Business, which would have been annulled for a second time. There seems to be a disconnection in regard to the understanding of the licence to operate a private security firm, the police certificate, and the police certified security plan. It took our company weeks, going on to months, to properly understand what the Police Certificate was and a police certified security plan.
To our surprise, the Police had no knowledge of the security plan, and the Ministry of Business was using the licence as the police certificate. This would have been dandy, but this misunderstanding would have cost our company this security contract.
During the meeting at the Ministry of Business with reference to the non-responsiveness of bids from several private security companies, the first issue was the reason given by the Ministry for the annulment of the tender process. The facial expressions and body language of all gathered instantly changed when the chair of the meeting outlined that the annulment of the tender was due to all bidders failing to provide a Police Certificate. All representatives of the security firms were taken aback by this most unjustifiable reason provided for the annulment of the tender.
All present at this meeting contended that there was never a Police Certificate issued to private security companies, but instead a receipt for $50,000 from the Officer of the Commissioner of Police, which could be presented in any tender document.
Imagine, even the treasurer of the Guyana Association of Private Security Organizations (GAPSO), Clyde Layne, was baffled, since he stated that no member of GAPSO had that Police Certificate.
Important to note: this issue is not exclusive to the Ministry of Business. It was also observed that, on several occasions, the representatives from the various Governmental organisations are absent and stall the already timely slothful process of opening tenders according to the prepared list. This in turn creates havoc on the other tenders scheduled to be opened, and the back and forth is not only mentally draining, but is unfair to the other companies tendering.
Our aim is not to embarrass anyone, but to highlight the infractions, injustices and malpractices that are occurring in the procurement process. In our view, procurement officers at the various Government entities should take their time when preparing tender documents. When retendering is done over and over, private security companies incur costs due many times to the negligence of the procuring entity. In addition to the cost factor to acquire the bid security, which is an imperative component of the evaluation criteria, adding up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and then preparation and printing (binding) costs must be factored in, the permanent secretaries at the various ministries should be briefed thoroughly before the tenders are advertised.
Without doing this, the permanent secretary, who is the chief accounting officer, can be held accountable. Further, it also brings embarrassment to the NPTAB, the Ministry and the entire Government.
As guidance, being in the tendering system for many years, it would appear that since the new administration took power, the process has gotten worse. Being a professional, I have no personal political axe to grind, but I simply wish to highlight the occurrences in public procurement.
Yours sincerely,
Roshan Khan Sr
RK’s Guyana Security
Services
