Dear Editor,
During the last four years, the PPPC government, led by His Excellency President Dr. Irfaan Ali, Prime Minister Brigadier (ret’d) Mark Phillips, and Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, has awarded trillions of dollars in contracts to hundreds, if not thousands, of large-, medium- and small-scale contractors throughout the country. Among those contracts were those for building, expansion, repair, and maintenance of roads and bridges; the construction of houses, schools, police stations, hospitals, health centres, and other Government buildings; and the cleaning and desilting of rivers, canals and trenches.
Some media outlets have reported that due diligence had not been properly conducted on several of these contractors, and many of them were eventually deemed unqualified, inexperienced and incompetent. Many of them have produced substandard work, and others have subcontracted their contracts to other contractors, but not before taking out a good slice of the amount paid on the contracts, leaving the subcontracted contractors with about 75 percent of the total bidding cost of the contract to complete the projects. And this in itself had resulted in substandard work being done by subcontracted contractors.
This corrupt practice must end if Guyana is to be developed. Contractors daring shoddiness and misconduct have triggered long delays before completing their contracts, which has not only been overbearing, but has also created inconvenience to the public at large.
The stalling of hundreds of contracts by delinquent and trashy contractors has prompted President Dr Ali to call a 5AM meeting to address the issue. Present at that meeting were several ministers of the Government, permanent secretaries, and senior Government officials; and while some contractors attended, many others were absent. Time and space would not allow me to explain the full details of the meeting, but suffice it to say that His Excellency read the Riot Act to all and sundry. In other words, he chastised and strongly reprimanded some of them as he attempted to put an end to such unacceptable conduct, lawlessness, and inexcusable and sloppy behaviour.
Almost everyone in all ten regions of the country not only praised the President for his courage, boldness and candidness, but placed their faith in him as their leader, and thanked him for his confidence and reassurance to solve some of the nation’s most vexing problems.
And while it is true that there are many corrupt, incompetent, unqualified and unskilled contractors who have been awarded contracts over the years, there are those who are highly skilful, competent, incorruptible, and are very serious about executing and completing their contracts in a timely manner.
Sincerely,
Dr Asquith Rose
