Overseer resigns after refusing to sign off unverified works
Kaieteur News – An Overseer attached to the Unity/ Vereeniging/ Mahaica Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) has resigned after refusing to sign off on unverified drainage work in his community.
The state of the drains in Unity, where a $13 million contract was issued to ensure it is properly maintained, on a monthly basis
The former Overseer, Bashkaran Basdeo told this newspaper that earlier this year, he was approached to sign off on a payment voucher, but declined to do so, since he was aware that the work was not completed. He told Kaieteur News that the Chairperson attached to the NDC, Ms. Basmattie Singh had received a contract to ensure critical drainage works are completed in the area.
Basdeo explained that the contract was signed between the Chief Executive Officer of the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA), Fredrick Flatts and the NDC Chair. The contract that was seen by this newspaper specified that the sum of $13,288,752 was to be paid to the contractor for “manual monthly maintenance cleaning (from) 1st January to 31st December 2021”. The contract catered for 14,571 rods of drainage and irrigation channels within the Unity/ Vereeniging NDC to be maintained.
Notably, this agreement was entered into on April 8, 2021, meaning that no work was done for January through March. Nevertheless Mr. Basdeo, who resigned back in August of this year from the NDC, complained and provided video evidence that no work has been done to clean the drains in the area. But before reaching this publication, the former NDC Overseer said that he complained to a senior functionary at the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development who reportedly told him that the contract was given to a “fellow comrade” and that “you must see with he”.
After exploring every option available to him, to hopefully get the work in his community done, Basdeo said he has come to realise that it is only Kaieteur News that can help him achieve his objective. “This is how tax payers’ money is spending. Millions passing to do the cleaning of this trench and this is how they are doing it. The NDIA gave the NDC a contract for millions and this is what they are doing. This is total corruption,” he stated in disgust. Basdeo said, “I resigned on August 30th 2021, and this continues to happen, because I refuse to sign vouchers for the Chair and Councilor who get the contract in their relatives’ names to do this job and I refused to. I informed (a big one) at the ministry and he told me that I have to see with those people “those are our supporters” and those people campaign to put them in power”.
The former Overseer contended that the situation is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated. Efforts made to contact the NDC were futile. Ever since the PPP Government took office, complaints have been mounting on the seemingly increased cost for projects, as well as the beneficiaries of contracts. In fact only recently the NDIA invited bids for the cleaning of drains in Georgetown worth over $200 million.