Georgetown, Guyana – (July 12, 2022) Prime Minister, Brigadier (Ret’d), the
Honourable Mark Phillips today emphasised the importance of transparency and
accountability in the execution of Government-funded projects.
He made these remarks at a contract-signing ceremony for the construction of a $117m,
6400 square foot, multi-purpose building for the Civil Defence Commission (CDC),
which was held at CDC’s headquarters, Thomas lands.
Prime Minister Phillips, who has responsibility for the Commission, charged both the
contractors and officials to execute the project in a timely and responsible manner. He
said that the objective is not just to complete the building in the estimated 24 months,
but to maintain its quality throughout the process.
He made reference to a past project, where senior officials broke the law and allowed
substandard performance.
“We need to do a better job at supervising projects to ensure that the Government and
people of Guyana derived the benefits.”
The Prime Minister pointed to the findings of the Auditor General’s Report for 2020,
which revealed financial breaches and other irregularities in the construction of the CDC
office building in 2019, where some $29m were paid for work that was never completed
and, in some cases, never started. This resulted in the current Government allocating
additional funds to complete the building in the 2021 budget.
“In order for the $29m to be paid to the contractors, senior CDC officials had to sign
documents stating that the works were completed, when they knew that the works were
not completed and in many cases had never started. So notwithstanding the fact that
Government found money to complete the building, these incidents for work that was
never done will have to be further investigated.”
