THE National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) wishes to clarify the matters raised by Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan as reported in a recent publication of a Kaieteur News article dated Sunday October 7th and titled: ‘US$4M drainage pumps…Ramjattan calls for probe in contract awarded to Indian Company’. The statements reported are related to the procurement of drainage pumps through an arrangement with the Government of India.

Through the Indian Line of Credit, 14 drainage pumps have been procured. Prior to the awarding of the contract, bid documents were sent through a public procurement process to 28 Indian Companies and after evaluation of the respondent companies by the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB), Surendra Engineering was awarded the contract since they were the lowest bidder. This contract was awarded in May, 2011.

The entire process of executing this contract was approved by the Export/Import Bank of India from the time of short listing of bidders, awarding of the contract and the execution of the project.

The National Drainage and Irrigation Authority wishes to state that the project period is ongoing. To date, six of the mobile pumps have been fabricated and is scheduled for factory testing in October before shipment to Guyana.

The NDIA wishes to state that we have indicated to Surendra Engineering that the pumps must only be shipped after the NDIA engineers have physically verified that the pumps have met specification and only after factory testing where NDIA personnel will be present.

The NDIA wishes to make clear that the contract is being executed in accordance with the contract document which provides for penalties to be applied with regard to contract shortfall. Penalties will be applied fully once required.

With regard to Kirloskar mentioned in the article, at the bid evaluation stage, it was revealed that the suggested company ‘Kiloshkar’ provided a bid to supply four fixed pumps at the cost of US$4 M as compared to a bid of 14 pumps at a budget of US$4M from Surendra Engineering.

The contract is still in execution within the revised work programme.