Prequalification to clean a drain?
Jun 19, 2016 , http://www.kaieteurnewsonline....on-to-clean-a-drain/
The Georgetown City Council is deservedly under a great deal of fire. The people are speaking out against the parking meter deal.
The matter is threatening to rip the Council apart, with some councilors publicly expressing their concern over the lack of information about the deal that has been entered into by the City Council with a foreign company.
The installation of parking meters is a revenue-generating measure. The council is also proposing a container tax. The Council may be assuming too much when it comes to its right to institute fees for parking meters and for the use of the city’s roads and reserves by containers.
Concerns have been expressed that there is too little information about the parking meter deal. More importantly, there have been criticisms over the fact that there was no tender for the award of a contract for parking meters.
Explanations are likely to be given when top officials return from Mexico, but it is doubtful whether any explanation will reverse the perceptions over this deal. It is left to be seen how the city’s fathers and mothers are going to extricate themselves from this deal, but there is another matter which is far more important.
It has been reported in a section of the media that the Council has advertised for the prequalification of contractors for a variety of works, including the cleaning of drains.
Now why would the City Council have to enter into a prequalification of contractors for a menial job such as the cleaning of drains? Why go to prequalification? Why not simply tender and allow for the best contractor to get the job. Why prequalification? Are there thousands of companies lining up to clean the drains?
The problem does not seem to be a case of hundreds of firms willing to clean the drains. The problem seems to have been a case where many workers were complaining that they were not being paid.
Prequalification for cleaning the drains will favour the big firms, which can be easily prequalified. It will be against the small contractors which have been doing a fantastic job in cleaning the city.
But why go to contracts in the first place for cleaning the drains in the city. Why does the City Council not simply employ persons to clean the drains on a regular basis and have these workers supervised, as was the case in colonial Guyana? Why does the City Council have to continuously be going to contracts for routine cleaning of the city?
If the council cuts out the contractors and employs its own cleaning gangs, it will save millions of dollars each year. Instead of having to constantly giving out multi-million-dollar contracts, it can do the job itself, using the machinery that was given to the Council.
The city should be able to do the job itself. It should have been able by now to collect its own garbage. But this too is not happening. Instead private firms are still being hired to collect garbage in the city.
There is no need for prequalification of any contractors. Give jobs to the ordinary man. Cut out the contractors. This will have the advantage of turning what should be major cleaning into routine maintenance, which is what is needed.
The Council has plans to sort garbage at one of its locations. This project will allow the council to earn revenues and to create jobs. Well, if the Council plans to do this, why can it not have its own cleaning gangs employed by the Council?
The City Council does not need to be giving out contracts. It should use contracted labour for major desilting of drains and then employ its own staff for routine cleaning.
Perhaps the Council envisages that it will soon be awash with money from the container tax and from the parking meters. The Council may be counting its chickens before they are hatched.
By the way, when will the public learn about the names of the persons contracted to clean the city over the past few months? How were these contractors selected? By prequalification? What were the qualifications?