On last night's UnCut, Minister of Infrastructure, Housing and Development, Julius Espat came prepared to answer the tough questions one of which included contracts whose sum amounted to $12 million dollars. Host Jules Vasquez started off by listing only some of these contracts, but Espat countered by saying many of them were done as emergency work following the devastating effects of Hurricanes Eta and Iota. He explained that some of the money also went towards much needed equipment. Here is that snippet.
Jules Vasquez
"Rodla, 1.13 million for resurfacing 10,560 feet of Philip Goldson highway; RJB contract 239 [thousand], George Price Highway; paving of that's 45,000; Emil Moreno, 65,000; HB Construction, 75,000; ADM Construction, 24,000; Regino Hernandez, 15,000; HB Construction about 38,000; Valley Ranch enterprises, 23,000; RJB construction 168,000; 139 [thousand] Rodla that may have been a payment from the one above, 227 [thousand] Valley Ranch; and I'm going through them, Minister, because you all have no transparency. Let's talk about these contracts because it's an alarming number and these are all new vendors."
Hon. Julius Espat - Minister of Infrastructure, Housing, and Development
"Under the emergency work that we were doing, we were budgeted 12 million dollars. Of that 12 million dollars, 2 million was reserved for equipment because when we entered into this ministry, there was absolutely no equipment that was working. And so, we convince Cabinet that to do the emergency work, we had to have inhouse equipment. So, what you are reading there are only some of the equipment we're purchasing. Now most of the equipment we are purchasing are used. Now how does that work? We get the quotation for the equipment, we send that information to the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Finance approves it and from there it goes to the contractor general and from there we get the resources under..."
Jules Vasquez
"But was it put out to tender?"
Hon. Julius Espat
"It doesn't have to put out to tender when it's under an emergency. There are three ways of doing tendering, one is called limited tender, and that is designed to use under an emergency mode. The you have selective tender that you pick three contractors that you have worked with in the past and you choose one based on the best price. And then you have the open bid. When we got into the emergency mode, which I hope you haven't forgotten, there was two... I think Eta and Iota. We consulted the attorney general as to how to do this work so that we can get it done in a limited period of time. Roads were washed away, the sugar crop was about to start, the agro-productive sector was in a disaster. So, we used the procurement system that is under the Audit and Reform Act."
