Mahipaul renews call for Critic's pump station contract be cancelled

One day after Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo denied having knowledge of social media commentator, Mikhail “Guyanese Critic” Rodrigues, being awarded an $870.5 million contract to build a pump station, the Opposition is again raising concern about the contract award.

The project has been on a standstill for several months, although Rodrigues has received more than $150 million in advance payments. The project is now delayed by several months.

Questions have been raised about how Tepui Inc., which has Rodrigues as its Director, was awarded the contract since the company had no experience in the area and was not the lowest bidder.

Rodrigues has long boasted of having close ties with senior people in the PPP, including the Vice President.

“Like the Critic thing that I get vilify for sometimes, I found out he was awarded a contract after the contract was awarded because I did not go to Cabinet,” Mr. Jagdeo told reporters on Thursday.

Today, Opposition Member of Parliament, Ganesh Mahipaul said the contract should have been terminated a while ago. He said it has now become clear that Critic’s company did not go through the evaluation process, and that raises more concerns about the contract awards.

“From the outset we have said openly that this pump station should have never been awarded to the Tepui group owned and operated by the Guyanese Critic and it is not because we are against him going into contract bidding and being awarding contract, but we are against awarding contracts when they do not meet the requirements to receive a contract,” Mahipaul noted.

The contract award was examined by the Public Procurement Commission and the Commission had concluded that there were several violations in the awarding of the contract.

And with more than a year since the contract award and more than $150m paid to the contractor, the contract is about 10% completed.

“Here we are seeing now, what is materializing before our eyes is his ability to not complete this contract, we are seeing his inability to do the work, we are seeing how the work is indeed technical and does not fit within his scope, because had he been evaluated properly and not awarded the contract then we would have had no issue,” the Opposition Member of Parliament stated.

The Opposition has repeatedly accused the PPP Government of handing out big money contracts to its family, friends and favourites.