Coalition took $800M loan and bought drainage pumps that can’t work – AG report
Nov 10, 2022 --- Source --- https://www.kaieteurnewsonline...cant-work-ag-report/
By Shervin Belgrave
Kaieteur News – The Auditor General (AG), Deodat Sharma in his 2021 report highlighted that the APNU+AFC government had taken a US$4M loan from the Indian Exim Bank and purchased a number of drainage pumps that are incapable of doing the job Guyana requires.
Agriculture Minister, Zulfikar Mustapha
Former Finance Minister, Winston Jordan signing the loan agreement in 2017 with a representative from the Indian Bank
According to AG’s report, “…ten of the twelve engines (part of the pump set-up) supplied were determined to be undersized and incapable of running the pumps on a long-term basis.”
The previous Coalition administration had acquired the US$4M loan for the pumps in 2017. Media reports back then had detailed that the deal with the Indian bank for the cash was signed in Washington DC., USA by former Finance Minister, Winston Jordan. The purpose for the cash, according to the AG’s report, was to procure and install “high capacity fixed and mobile drainage pumps along with their associated structures (other parts and fittings needed to assemble the pumps)”.
After acquiring the cash, the coalition had announced in a press release that the pumps they were going to buy “are expected to reduce the risks of flooding in low-lying areas (across the country) and will bring relief to residents and farmers… (and) will provide flood relief to approximately 25,000 acres of agricultural and residential lands” In 2018, the Coalition began the process of procuring the pumps needed to achieve its goal and on September 3 that year, it signed a US$3.6M deal with an Indian Company, Apollo International Limited to supply them.
The then Agriculture Minister, Noel Holder, overseeing the signing of US$3.6M contract with the Indian company for the pumps in 2018.
Based on the deal signed, the company was tasked with designing seven pump stations along with supplying and installing 12 drainage pumps –nine fixed and three mobile high capacity pumps-at different locations across the coast of Guyana.
Noel Holder, the then Minister of Agriculture had assured the country that the pumps his government had procured were the correct ones needed and was quoted by the media saying that once installed, there will be a significant reduction of flooding across the coast.
The pumps were expected to arrive 12 months later in 2019 and payments would have been made but the coalition faced a major setback after the then PPP opposition party moved a successful no confidence motion against them in December 2018. According to the AG’s 2021 report, the pumps arrived in March 2020 – during the elections period – and the first payment of GYD$495.9M (US$2.3M-more than half the US$3.6M contract sum) was paid to Apollo International Limited. It is unclear whether or not that money was paid out by the coalition or current administration. However, the current government made a second payment of GYD$104.9M (US$501,000) in 2021 to the company and the pumps were finally installed at different locations across the coast. The balance of US$3.6M contract sum however was withheld from the company after it was found out that pumps procured by the previous coalition government were the wrong ones.
Former Agricultural Minister, Noel Holder
Former Finance Minister, Winston Jordan
As a result of this, stated the AG report, “The (current) Government ordered an assessment to be done on the engines by a technical team. The team reportedly recommended that ten of the 12 engines found to be “undersized and incapable of the job” be replaced. It was recommended too that the remaining balance of contract sum be used to replace the wrong pump engines and “remedy other defects on the various supplied equipment”.
Speaking with Kaieteur News on Wednesday, Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha, said that purchase of the wrong engines for the job was a “blunder by APNU+AFC and his government is now negotiating with the Indian Company to get the pumps replaced as soon as possible. Mustapha said, “We haven’t gotten through as yet but the remaining balance of the money has been held up and the AG (Attorney General) had gotten involved.” Once the pumps are replaced, related Mustapha, only then will the company receive the balance of its money.