News Source Guyana Reports : The issues of small contracts, housing, agriculture, and mining took center stage as hundreds of persons flocked the Arthur Chung Conference Centre today to meet with Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo and a number of Government Ministers.
In relation to small contracts, it was revealed that about 12,000 persons have made submissions for small contracts valued at $15 million.
However, more than 1,000 of them could find themselves without contracts due to various errors and anomalies detected during the pre-qualification process. Just days ago, the issues led to the suspension of the issuance of contracts in Region 4. The Vice President explained that it is an issue being addressed.
“In that pre-qualification exercise, we got nearly 12,000 small contractors, who submitted documents for pre-qualification. So, we have been vetting the list and with a lot of difficulties—you have some people who, four family members might have four different companies and we prohibited that in the pre-qualification document—and some others, who are big contractors, who are trying to get in with the small contractors. So, it has been a difficult exercise to clean the list, and we have done so on the ground with technical staff, ministerial involvement, hoping to clean up the list of pre-qualified contractors,” VP Jagdeo told reporters.
Mr. Jagdeo said once persons pass the pre-qualification stage “legitimately,” the Government would try its best to ensure that each of the contractors gets at least one contract.
“I want everyone to know, once you are pre-qualified legitimately, assuming that of the 12,000, 11,000 contractors are legitimately pre-qualified, that over the course of the year, we will try to get at least one contract to each but everyone wants to go in the first round. So, if they see now that some contracts are being awarded because we have to start at the beginning, they complain, they are left out but we can’t award 10,000 contracts at the same time. The idea was to help small people to grow,” the Vice President explained.
He admitted that there are those attempting to cheat the system, leaving the Government caught in the middle. The Vice President said tough decisions will have to be made.
He assured that through enhanced verification, the Government intends to ensure that the process is transparent and fair, and Guyanese from across the 10 Administrative Regions benefit from the issuance of the small contracts.
However, those who missed the pre-qualification process this year will have to wait until next year to do so.
An attendee at today’s meeting, Andrew Williams, was among the hundreds of persons present hoping to secure a road contract. Williams told News Source that he had secured a contract in the past and was hoping to get another one.
Williams said the move to empower Guyanese through small contracts is commendable.
“This morning I am here looking for a job. I done contracts with the government before and the Government is doing something very good. They are trying to help small contractors to build themselves to a position in the future, and I respect that,” Williams said.
Chairman of Buxton North CDC, Hyacinth Ridley, who was present along with a number of her CDC members, expressed confidence that the Government will deliver on the contracts.
“Everybody will have a contract. Once they had a contract, they will get it last year, this year. We know that we will get a contract. I have two contracts before, personally, and my group had contracts also last year, and we know that we will get contracts,” Ridley said.
Issues relating to housing and the need for land ownership, cash grants, waste disposal management, drainage and irrigation, mining, poorly lit communities, National Insurance Scheme benefits, and Old Age Pension were also raised with the Government officials.
“We have, for example, nearly 90,000 street lights that in the country now that we need to install in all of the villages and in the wards in the city. We have started the drainage programme, we now have to accelerate that. We are putting in security cameras, which is what we promised—this year, maybe about 2,000 of those would go across the country into the villages to enhance security. A lot of those things we promised but sometimes people become a little bit impatient,” the Vice President said.
He said the Government is working to address the backlog of applications for house lots.
It was explained that while Region 4 is a challenge due to influx of applications, the Government is aiming to clear the backlog in the other nine regions by the end of 2028.
