Every legit small contractor will get a contract – VP

…as Govt tightened checks, vets 12,000 applicants in pre-qualification drive

Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has explained the pre-qualification process for small contractors, stating that legitimately pre-qualified contractors will receive at least one contract this year.
He made the statement on Monday morning at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, where he led a Public Day outreach engaging citizens on a range of issues and government matters.
Jagdeo said many persons who attended the engagement raised concerns about contracts and access to opportunities.
The Vice President further stated that the government implemented a pre-qualification exercise to enhance transparency in the awarding of contracts and to create greater opportunities for small contractors. He explained that in the past, contracts valued below $15 million were awarded in keeping with the Procurement Act, benefiting thousands of Guyanese. However, concerns were raised by some individuals who said they were unaware of the process, prompting the government to introduce the pre-qualification system to ensure broader participation and awareness.
He revealed that nearly 12,000 small contractors submitted applications during the exercise, noting that the government has since been vetting the list amid several challenges.

“You have some people who, four family members, might have four different companies, and we prohibited that in the pre-qualification document. Some others who might have been big contractors were trying to get in with the small contractors. So, it has been a difficult exercise to clean the list or cleanse the list. We have done so on the ground with technical staff and ministerial involvement, hoping to clean up the list of pre-qualified contractors,” he explained.

Fully verified
Jagdeo further stated that once the list is fully verified, each legitimately pre-qualified contractor should receive at least one contract within the year.
“I want everyone to know, once you’re pre-qualified legitimately, assuming that out of the 12,000, about 11,000 contractors are legitimately pre-qualified,that over the course of the year we’ll try to get at least one contract each. But everyone wants to go in the first round. So when they see contracts being awarded at the beginning, they feel left out. But we can’t award 10,000 contracts at the same time. The idea was to help small people grow,” he said.
“We never said it would be an easy task because you have a lot of people trying to cheat the system. We are sometimes caught in the middle and have to take tough decisions, but we will do so,” he stated.
Jagdeo added that citizens across all 10 regions will benefit from increased procurement opportunities, particularly small contractors.
“We could have easily done like APNU and others and given the contracts to a few big people, which is what they did. That’s not our track record,” he said.
He reiterated that the government’s goal is to expand opportunities for small contractors and improve transparency in the procurement system.