This is false information and begs more questions than answers. If the original bid proposal of the second most responsive bidders was missing key requirements, such as withholding tax, hardware cost, service delivery, and firewall subscription, all of which were supposed to be part of the original requirements for implementation of such a High-Level revenue system, then the bidder was not responsive at all as per the requirements set in the bidding documents.
Thus, in accordance with the World Bank procurement guidelines and the GPPA Act, the contract was supposed to be relaunched. Let the Ministry of Finance (Project Coordination Unit) and the GRA publish the original system requirements that were sent to all bidders for them to submit their proposals. This information should be publicly available if this were an international tender, as required by all World Bank projects.
They should also publish the bid submissions of all the bids they received, along with the evaluation report for this procurement. They should also shed light on why the initially chosen bidders went bankrupt and clarify why they paid almost $ 2 million with a bank guarantee to that supplier, who immediately went bankrupt after visiting the country and having a meeting with the GRA Commissioner General.
Suppose Seedy Keita and the government of Adama Barrow wish to be transparent with the Gambians. In that case, they should publish all the details of this procurement contract, which they have executed with a company’s representative who refuses to engage with their local representatives, instead opting to deal with government officials and declare bankruptcy after receiving advance payment. Seedy Keita and Yankuba Darboe are primarily responsible for this situation.
By a former Ministry of Finance staff
