Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall has explained that the government is not hiring more staff to establish contract monitoring units within the various ministries.
“No new staff is going to be hired for this purpose, at least not at this stage,” he said on this evening during his programme titled ‘Issues in the News’ which is streamed on social media.
The Attorney General was at the time responding to criticisms of the government’s move to establish a Contract Compliance Unit with the Ministry of Legal Affairs and similar units within the other ministries dedicated to evaluating the performance of contractors. The units are tasked with looking into delays in the execution of government projects and instituting penalties including liquidated damages, forfeiture of bonds and other securities, termination of contracts and further sanctions.
Some have argued that the contractors have consultants and engineers who should be engaged but the AG noted that the systems in place are “clearly not working in the manner that it should,” thereby making it necessary to establish the project evaluation units.
In the long term, Nandlall said the administrators of the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL) will undertake to offer courses in the areas of contract management, contract monitoring and contract evaluation. He added that courses from the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) were requested.
According to the Attorney General, 50 officers within the government will be offered scholarships once the specific programmes become available.
“They would be spread across the sectors, in almost every sector we will select persons including lawyers from the Ministry. All of that is to enhance the government’s ability and the government’s capacity to monitor, evaluate and enforce these contracts for the betterment of the people of Guyana,” he said.
