Team of engineers, auditors to probe asphalt plant racket – Minister Edghill

Public Works Minister, Juan Edghill, has revealed that a high-level team of engineers and auditors is being assembled to probe the alleged asphalt plant racket at the state-run facility.
It was Kaieteur News which reported recently on what was said to be a systematic scam at the Garden of Eden facility.

The Minister immediately ordered an investigation be launched, sending a strong message that the government will not tolerate any form of corruption.
Providing an update, Minister Edghill told Kaieteur News that the investigation will be “thorough and decisive.”
Well-placed sources revealed that contractors working on government projects were up to recently mandated to take their asphalt from the Garden of Eden plant.
Kaieteur News was told by a number of persons that contractors would get asphalt at huge discounts under a scam that stretched all the way to the Ministry of Public Works.

“What happened is that there is a special department in the Ministry that conducts road repairs and other maintenance works. They would order a certain amount from the plant to be billed to the Ministry. They, however, collect less. The difference is what is sold at a discount price to contractors,” a whistleblower had told this newspaper.

It was explained that contractors would come in a few days later and pay about half price for the asphalt from the plant being operated by the Demerara Harbour Bridge Corporation (DHBC).
“This has a lot of impact. It means that a contractor is buying raw materials cheap, below cost, and can effectively compete with other contractors,” persons with knowledge of the scam said to Kaieteur News.
It would mean that the state would have lost tens of millions of dollars in revenues.

Already, operators of privately-run asphalt plants have been complaining of little or no business.
“What they do is to force contractors to buy from Garden of Eden. In fact, contractors all the way from Berbice were asked to travel all the way to East Bank Demerara when there are asphalt plants in operations in Berbice.”

It was explained that the only way this made financial sense is if the contractors were getting discounts.
“There is a simple way to check how it is happening. There needs to be a special audit. Everybody knows it takes a certain amount of bitumen to make so much asphalt. An audit of what the department of the Ministry was doing will clearly show something is wrong,” one contractor said.
The operators of the asphalt plant, the Demerara Harbour Bridge Incorporated (DHB), had washed their hands clean of the allegations and insisted that their system is airtight, leaving no room for errors.