agdeo accuses Harmon of lying to keep Govt contracts secret
Minister of State, Joseph Harmon
Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo, has countered statements that Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, made last week about making Government contracts public.
Jagdeo said that the contracts to which Harmon referred do not contain any confidentiality clause.
Harmon had said that the contracts which the PPP/C government signed during its time in office have within them confidentiality clauses, which prevent the current administration from disclosing the contents of the agreements.
Yesterday, in a press conference at Freedom House, Jagdeo made it clear that he has been calling for the government to publish both the evaluation reports for several projects and contracts which the government had deemed to be corrupt.
Jagdeo considers it “absolute nonsense” that the Minister of State would inform the public that the PPP/C had included confidentiality clauses in government contracts.
“I have never seen a more inexcusable excuse for lack of transparency…The evaluation reports don’t have any confidentiality clause; this is the property of the government and people of Guyana.”
Jagdeo said that normally there is a confidentiality clause in the process of negotiating during the pre-contract stage. According to him, this is a standard business practice around the world and is done so as to protect information of the other party.
Jagdeo went on to say “Once the contract is signed then these are agreements and are property of government.”
