The Grenada government says it has told the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) it is not in favor of the procurement rule which requires international bidding for a project to be implemented on the island.
“Just last month we fought with the CDB and tell them, we have carpenters and joiners in Grenada here that we want to do the job and not send the job overseas, “said Mobilization, Implementation, and Transformation Minister Andy Williams.
“They were telling us that we have to do international bidding for certain furniture for schools and we said no, we want our people to do the job, and this is the approach we want to take,” he told a meeting at the Grenada Boys Secondary School.
The meeting was with private landowners and other service providers in the construction industry and was intended to provide information about government’s plans to build 500 homes for the 2023 budget cycle.
“We as a government believe in our people, empowering our people, and part of why we are having this consultation right here now is that when we start to build these 500 houses we want to be able to use our people to do the job,” Williams said, providing justification for rejecting the international bidding process.
According to the CDB procurement rules, the objective of international competitive bidding is to provide all eligible prospective bidders with timely and adequate notification of the requirements of a recipient of CDB financing and an equal opportunity to bid for the required goods, works, and services.
Williams did not provide in-depth information about the specific CDB project but on the government of Grenada procurement website there was a notice in the last quarter of 2022 inviting bids to supply school furniture for the Ministry of Education under the Grenada Education Enhancement Project.
The last day for bidding for the project was November 30, 2022.
The notice explained that the government had received one million US dollars in financing from the CDB toward the cost of supply of school furniture project and intends to apply a part of the funds to cover eligible payments under the agreement.
The notice, providing background to the project, stated that payment by the CDB will be made only at the request of Grenada government and upon approval by the CDB, and will be subject, in all respects, to the terms and conditions of the loan agreement.
The sealed bid from eligible and qualified bidders was for procuring 800 student chairs, 800 student desks, 800 teachers’ desks, 400 executive chairs, 400 storage cabinets, and 800 lab stools.
Meanwhile, Housing Minister, Phillip Telesford, says the Dickon Mitchell administration will seek to partner with the private sector in building the 500 homes it promised to deliver during the first year in office.
In his 2023 budget statement to Parliament last December, Prime Minister Mitchell said the government is committed to deliver 500 high-quality climate-resilient Grenadian-style houses this fiscal year.
The allocation for that project is EC$2.5 million (One EC dollar=US$0.37 cents).
CMC
