News
CG probes procurement practice at Accountant General's Department
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
THE Accountant General's Department is under the microscope of Contractor General Greg Christie for allegedly flouting the Government's procurement guidelines.
Christie's office said it was tipped off by three "highly placed independent" sources who have expressed concern about the contract award practices of the AGD, specifically, the procurement of its telephone system in 2007 from Syncon Technologies Limited.
"The allegations, comments and concerns of the three independent sources would suggest, among other things, that the procurement and contract management practices of the AGD may have been, or are, irregular, improper and or lacking in transparency and fairness and that the (contract with Syncon) might not have been procured in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Contractor General Act and or the Government's Procurement Procedures," Christie said in a release to the media yesterday.
The contractor general said he has informed Accountant General Millicent Hughes of the special investigation as well as Finance Minister Audley Shaw and Financial Secretary Dr Wesley Hughes about the probe.
Christie said the decision to begin the investigation follows on the April 2009 response by the Accountant General Department to an OCG preliminary enquiry in March of that year.
Yesterday, senior director of monitoring operations, corporate communications and special projects at the OCG Craig Beresford, was reluctant to divulge the Syncon contract amount, stating that this detail would be disclosed further in the investigations. Attempts by the Observer to ascertain same from the Accountant General's Department were equally unsuccessful.
Police just last month confirmed that a major fraud case had been uncovered at the Accountant General's Department. In that incident a supervisor who worked in the pensions department allegedly swindled millions of dollars in pension cheques drawn in the names of dead pensioners.
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