Yarrowkabra school contract will not be honoured – Jagdeo

…says public officers who knowingly breach financial laws will face “hot water”

The contract that was signed on Tuesday between the Education Ministry and contracting company BK International Incorporated for in excess of $826 million will not be honoured under a People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) Government. The contract was for the construction of the Yarrowkabra Secondary School, on the Linden-Soesdyke Highway and was signed days after President David Granger dissolved Parliament.

On Thursday, at the PPP weekly press conference Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo said that such a contract cannot be honoured.
“You can’t do that in January when there is no budget, sign a contract for eight hundred and something million and expect us to honour it, we will not honour it,” Jagdeo stated.
The contract was signed by the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary and BK International Managing Director, Brian Tiwarie.
The project was said to be part of the Ministry’s strategy to provide modern educational facilities across Guyana.
According to the Opposition Leader, approving new contracts at the start of a new fiscal year without a budget and at just two months away from elections is not only illegal but reeks of corruption.
In fact, he had in his possession two Cabinet documents which showed that over 50 contracts were awarded in December 2019 by the incumbent A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance for Change (APNU/AFC) coalition Government.
“When I see a contract like suddenly appearing signed for nearly a billion dollars for a school, and when I see who the central players are I can put my head on the block that its corrupt…This is a way of siphoning money right at the end but all of this has a cost. Remember they are running down the reserve, already sold off the gold. All of these agencies are bankrupt so the new Government comes into office tens of billions of dollars of bills they have already ran up,” he explained.
In this regard, Jagdeo proceeded to warn public officers, especially Permanent Secretaries about signing such documents for the disbursements of monies when elections is so near.

He added that all public accounts should have been closed off by December 31 and monies returned to the Treasury, while reiterating that public officers who knowingly breach the country’s financial laws will land themselves in hot water.
“I want to warn the public officers who are signing these things that they know the law. I saw the signing taking place in January, they know we’re two months away from elections, they know they can’t have monies disbursed now…The account should have been closed and all the monies should’ve been returned to the Treasury.”
“Remember the books have to be closed on December 31st, I suspect that’s the only way they can pay mobilising advance on these contracts signed in January because there’s no budget for it. You can’t approve new contracts in the fit of capital contracts in the new fiscal year….so this is illegal and trust me, any single public servant who knowingly does this and mainly the Permanent Secretaries and REOs, if they knowingly do this they’re going to get into serious trouble because it’s a breach of our financial laws.”
Just days ago, the Public Infrastructure Ministry was flagged by the Audit Office of Guyana in its 2018 report for keeping over $700 million instead of returning it to the Consolidated Fund as required by law.