Amid exposure of skullduggery, GECOM pulls ads from K/News

Jul 02, 2017 News, http://www.kaieteurnewsonline....ulls-ads-from-knews/

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), angry at investigative reports by Kaieteur News over the questionable spending of hundreds of millions of dollars for the 2015 General Elections, has pulled its ads from the newspaper.

The decision was apparently taken since the beginning of the year by management of that entity.

On Friday, Kaieteur News ran an update of a state audit probe into a $100M purchase of outdated high frequency radios.

GECOM also bought a quantity of pliers, toners and Duracell batteries for prices much higher that the retail prices.

According to Auditor General, Deodat Sharma, he is currently studying the response of GECOM’s Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield, who was asked to pen his comments on the findings of a draft report by auditors.

Friday’s report sparked a tip-off by a media house that GECOM had taken a decision to punish Kaieteur News.

“We have been receiving ads. You have not. Check it out. You like to expose…you are paying for it now,” the media official joked yesterday.

But the issue is no laughing matter. Checks by Kaieteur News were alarming. The findings yesterday would bring to mind the decision by the Bharrat Jagdeo administration in the 2000s to punish the privately-owned Stabroek News by yanking all state ads.

It appeared GECOM has taken upon itself to use state funds to do the same thing.

Since January, Kaieteur News has not been receiving one single advertisement. By contrast, Stabroek News and the state-owned Guyana Chronicle benefitted from millions of dollars.

Under practices, state agencies have a few options when it comes to advertising.

In the case of GECOM, it is mandated to educate the populace using the most popular medium.

There are mainly two options. Either the state agency advertises with all the media houses, including print, or with the media houses with the widest readership or reach to the population.

Kaieteur News has the widest circulation in Guyana and has one of the largest online readerships for a website in the Region.

By practice, the ads are placed with state newspaper, Guyana Chronicle, as a must.

Between January and June, more than 60 ads, some full pages, were placed in Stabroek News and Guyana Chronicle and not Kaieteur News.

Perhaps, the most glaring of it, occurred in April. During that month, on April 13, 16, 19 and 23, GECOM placed four full-page ads on each day in Stabroek News. Again, none in Kaieteur News.

GECOM, tasked with managing General and Regional Elections, and the distribution of ID cards to Guyanese, late last year came under the spotlight, after questions about the purchase of outdated high frequency communications radios, sparked a state audit probe into other multi-million-dollar contracts.

The disclosures have been worrying for the entity which has remained silent during reports.

GECOM said it would await the outcome of the state audit report before commenting.

The Office of the Auditor General descended on the GECOM secretariat late last year after a series of articles by Kaieteur News painted a picture of significant corrupt practices for procurement at that entity.

Despite several glaring cases of procurement breaches, no action has been taken at GECOM.

By contrast, several officials at other agencies have been sent home pending investigations.

Evidence provided by Government sources and others concluded that hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts were handed out in highly questionable circumstances.

Auditors were working at the GECOM High Street, Kingston office and other locations, perusing contracts and inventories.

They would have been looking, especially, at spending by the entity for the May 2015 General and Regional Elections.

The probe by the AG office reportedly extended to expenditure for the 2016 Local Government Elections.

BREACHES
The auditors have reportedly found several cases of worrying breaches of procurement procedures, excesses and wanton spending – in some cases items were purchased for four or five times the retail prices.

With GECOM in the spotlight over the selection of a new chairperson following the departure of Dr. Steve Surujbally earlier this year, the Opposition especially has been calling for reforms.

With regard to GECOM’s spending, from internal documents and those filed with the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB), GECOM reportedly deliberately bypassed established procedures of the state when it comes to using tax dollars to procure services and items.

At GECOM, the accounting officer responsible for spending is the CEO. Auditors were said to be interested in the purchase of not only the high frequency radios, but also millions spent in toners for printers and photocopiers, and a quantity of pliers.

With regard to the radios, weeks before the May 2015 elections, GECOM’s secretariat made a case for the purchase 50 High Frequency radios for use during the elections.

Because of the emergency nature, the purchase was approved by the then Cabinet, under former President Donald Ramotar.

FAKE QUOTATION
There were several things wrong with the purchase of those radios which reportedly turned out to be unserviceable. One prominent company, Massy Technologies Guyana Limited, denied that it ever submitted a quotation to supply the radios. Somebody submitted the fake quotation and GECOM’s senior officials accepted it.

The communication radio sets were outdated and came too late for them to be deployed in time for the May 11, 2015 elections.

CEO Keith Lowenfield, on April 23, 2015, wrote the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) making a case for the radio purchases.

He said that the radios were urgently needed to help GECOM communicate with its staffers who are working in outlying areas that had no telephone services.

There also appeared to be evidence that GECOM conducted contract-splitting to hide a number of questionable purchases from the Cabinet.
Among some of the purchases were pliers, Duracell batteries, toners and even office equipment.

INFLATED PRICES
In almost all the cases, there was evidence that the prices were highly inflated, as in the case of the radios.

Some of the radios supplied by Brasse at the time were retailing for $300,000. Yet GECOM paid on average $2M apiece. Former GECOM Chairman, Dr. Surujbally had emphasised that it was the Secretariat that handled purchasing of items and services.

The glaring breaches were not for those unserviceable radios alone.

According to official figures of contracts awarded in 2015, there were two payments for Duracell batteries by GECOM. One contract was awarded on April 23, 2015, about three weeks before the elections, for $14,529,000.

This contract was awarded to Mobile Authority, a business also owned by Brasse. There was another contract awarded to the same entity for $9,180,518 on May 21, 2015, making it a total of $23,709,518 paid for Duracell batteries in 2015.

Three weeks prior to the election, the entity doled out $14.8M for the purchase of nippers/pliers from a King Street, Lacytown business called Standard Distributors. The owner is the brother of Brasse.

It appeared that GECOM paid out an average of $6,000 apiece for those pliers when they could have been acquired on the local market for $600. It was not even a familiar brand.