See below the full release from the Ministry of Agriculture:
On Friday, APNU+AFC MP, Sherod Duncan attempted to take a swipe at the Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha, on a project his government embarked on in 2017/18.
A contract was awarded by the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) in the sum of US$3.602M equivalent to $753.397M on 5 June 2018 for the design, supply, installation and commissioning of nine fixed and three mobile high capacity engines.
The contract was signed on 03 September 2018 by the previous APNU+AFC Coalition government to an Indian company, Apollo International.
US$4 million loan was taken from the Indian Exim Bank in 2017 for the purchase of the engines. The deal was signed by former Finance Minister Winston Jordan in Washington.
In the 2021 Auditor General Report, “ten of the twelve engines… supplied were determined to be undersized and incapable of running the pumps on a long-term basis.”
The coalition had boasted “to reduce the risks of flooding in low-lying areas across the country and will bring relief to residents and farmers.
On September 3, 2018, the coalition began procuring the engines by signing a deal of US$3.6m with Apollo International for the supply and installation of the 12 drainage pumps.
The then agriculture minister Noel Holder told the nation that his Coalition government had procured the right engines for the job.
The engines were to be delivered within 12 months, but that never happened.
The wrong engines arrived in March 2020, during the election fiasco. Over US$2.3m were already paid to Apollo.
In 2021, a second payment of US$501,000 was made, and the engines were installed on the pumps at various locations across the country.
After finding out that APNU+AFC had purchased the wrong engines, the current government withheld the balance payment.
“The current government ordered an assessment to be done on the engines by a technical team. The team reportedly recommended that ten of the 12 engines found to be undersized and incapable of the job “be replaced,” the 2021 AG report stated.
The remaining balance was to be used to replace the wrong engines and fix the ones installed.
The new government is in negotiations with the Indian Company to have the matter settled.
Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha had said that the purchase of the wrong engines was a “blunder by APNU+AFC.”
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