PPP Councillors call on Procurement Commission to probe parking meter contract

People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Councillors Bishram Kuppen and Khame Sharma are asking the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) to investigate the controversial Parking Meter Contract which was unilaterally awarded to Smart City Solutions Inc. (SCSI) by the Mayor & City Council (M&CC).

In a letter dated October 2, Sharma and Kuppen requested the PPC to determine the following five factors:
1.Whether the national interest was safeguarded when the contract was signed
2. If the officers and personnel who signed the contract acted in accordance with the rules and regulations relative to procurement of a contract of this magnitude and cost.
3. Whether the process of awarding the contract was done in a fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost- effective manner
4. To make a pronouncement on the sole sourcing and whether the Ministry of Communities was complicit in the execution of this contract by signing and gazetting the by-laws, thereby operationalising paid metered parking in the City of Georgetown.
Contacted, Georgetown Mayor Patricia Chase-Green said the Council is open to the level of scrutiny the councillors are requesting. She said she has no issues with the duo exercising their democratic right in calling for an independent investigation, but noted that the Council has taken decisions and is moving ahead with the implementation of those decisions.
M&CC had entered into a contract with SCSI on May 13, 2016 for parking meters to be implemented in Georgetown. A committee was set up on April 26, 2017, one month after Communities Minister Ronald Bulkan had suspended the paid parking initiative, to examine the way forward.
The life of the Parking Meter Re-negotiation Committee ended with it submitted its final report and findings to the Mayor of Georgetown on August 2, and later circulated same to all councillors.
The report made three recommendations: renegotiate the contract with SCSI; scrap the entire project; and await the outcome of the pending court cases.
On September 7, a majority of the councillors voted in favour of continuing the metered parking systems with a renegotiated contract. A new committee would have to be selected, and Chase-Green has mandated that two members of the public must sit on that committee.
The new committee, according to the draft ToRs, would be tasked with engaging Smart City Solutions with a view to renegotiating the terms of the agreement entered into between the parties, and more specifically to seek to take into account the concerns raised and addressed in the report of the Special Committee in relation to costs, fines, enforcement, profit-sharing, areas, times and other factors identified in relation to the project; and any other relevant actions as the Committee may, in its discretion, determine or as may be suggested by the general council.
Upon completion of the negotiation period, the new committee would have to prepare a report and present it to Council at a meeting called for that purpose, setting out the proposals and/or agreements arrived at.
In their letter to Chairman of the PPC, Carol Corbin, Sharma and Kuppen traced the series of events that led to the renegotiated contract pending. The new committee will be installed on October 9.