It has been a busy year for the Ministry of Communications and Works, with 401 contracts handed out as of Tuesday, CW Minister Mark Vanterpool said.
But while projects have kept MCW staffers busy, the competitive bidding process hasn’t: Only one of those contracts — a $499,500 agreement for an engineering consultancy — was tendered.
The rest, totaling about $3.2 million, have either been petty contracts under $100,000 or have had the tender process waived by Cabinet, Mr. Vanterpool said.
The practice of breaking large government projects into a series of smaller contracts awarded at the ministry’s discretion — a technique long practised under both National Democratic Party and Virgin Islands Party governments — has been criticised in recent months by auditors and opposition members for violating the spirit of public finance rules.
But when questioned by a reporter Tuesday, Mr. Vanterpool said that the practice is needed to “spread out the work.”
“We determine what the cost of the project is to government so that we can get good value for money and invite contractors to work for that price,” he said. “That’s how we operate on certain projects, and you’ll see it continue.”
See the July 25, 2013 edition for full coverage.