By Gary Eleazar

The Ministry of Public Infrastructure (MPI) is currently looking for contractors to undertake the upgrade of the Sheriff Street-Mandela Avenue roadway, but the bidding pool has been restricted.

The Ministry, in notices issued recently, is asking bidders to lodge up to $41 million in bid security before their proposals are even considered for evaluation.
According to the notices issued by the Ministry, the project is being undertaken in six lots.
Each bid must be accompanied by bid security. The rate set for lot six is US$200,000 (G$41.6 million). Lots one through three are set at a rate of US$50,000 (G$10.4 million). Lot four has been set at a rate of US$30,000 (G$6.2 million) while lot five has been earmarked at US$20,000 (G$4.1 million).
According to the notices issued by the Ministry, the project entails rehabilitative works.

This means that contractors looking to submit a bid for evaluation to undertake works in lot six will firstly have to come up with $41.6 million in collateral before even being considered.
The procurement notice has been posted by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the funding agency for the project.
Observers recently questioned what exactly the Administration was looking to construct, since half of the money that was made available for the project has already been diverted towards a housing drive.
The IDB had initially approved some US$66 million for the road upgrade project, but the coalition Government opted to divert US$30 million of that amount towards the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) for works to be undertaken in Sophia.
The Sheriff Street-Mandela Avenue road upgrade project has been on the cards for a number of years – piloted by the previous Administration, but its scope was revised under the current Administration. Critics have also raised eyebrows at the level of the bid security being asked, and pointed to recent lamentations by Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, who had alleged tampering with the procurement process in order to award contracts to favoured supporters.
The original Engineer’s Estimate had been set at US$36,377,564, but the procurement process was annulled on previous occasions.
Jagdeo recently sought to make a case against the Public Infrastructure Ministry and its regular annulment of contracts as proof of tampering with the procurement process.
Jagdeo, at the time, told reporters that the Ministry had adopted a strategy where it would advertise and invite persons to bid for projects, but at the last minute, would annul the process. The Ministry would then go on to negotiate a contract with a chosen ‘crony’, according to Jagdeo.
As he sought to outline the Administration’s penchant for annulling the process and then opting to negotiate with favoured contractors, the Opposition Leader said this did not obtain only in the case of the well-publicised feasibility report for the new Demerara River crossing.
The Opposition Leader at the time supplied media operatives with a paper trail for other contracts which clearly showed the Ministry annulling the process before going on to select favoured contractors.
According to Jagdeo, “they annul the bid process after they award the contract… another set of corruption in the same Ministry”.
He told media operatives that the Administration has developed a modus operandi where it has a penchant for annulling tenders “when the desired person doesn’t get the bid – win the bid – one of their cronies.”
Jagdeo recalled too that the same practice obtained by the David Patterson-run Ministry for the multibillion-dollar Sherriff Street upgrade.
The Opposition Leader told media operatives this practice was also employed by the Administration for a range of other projects, such as a recent award for a contract for a water treatment plant, and projects at the Guyana Power and Light Inc, among others.
With regard to the sudden cancellation of the vehicular overpass that was announced, Jagdeo suggested that none of the favoured bidders had been successful and this was why the project was scrapped and that it had nothing to do with the reasons offered.
The Ministry recently indicated that the land earmarked for the project had in fact been sold in a private arrangement.
“This is not an exhaustive list. It is just indicative of the corruption at the Ministry of the Public Infrastructure… the Ministry is spending money in a reckless way. It does not know what it is doing. It is corrupt to the core,” he said.
The Ministry recently came under fire also when social commentator and eminent Chartered Accountant, Christopher Ram questioned the rapid rate of expenditure by the Ministry at the end of the year – the very ministry that had barely managed to spend 28 per cent of its annual allocation 10 months into the year.
The scope of works for the Sheriff Street- Mandela Avenue road corridor includes asphaltic pavement, road safety, upgrading traffic intersection signals at each of the major road junctions, and traffic and drainage improvement works. There will also be structural works to bridges, culverts and other supporting infrastructure. Pavement works will include the construction of a two-lane roadway with a median partitioning the two lanes along Sheriff Street.
The first section of Mandela Avenue will involve expansion from a two-lane to a four-lane roadway with a median in the centre, while the second section will consist of three lanes.
The total length of roadway to be rehabilitated/constructed is seven kilometres and would involve road-widening, reconstruction of failed sections, and asphalt overlay.