Some community contractors in Dramedtse Gewog, Monggar have voiced their concerns over the direct awarding of two community contract work, worth over Nu 2M to contractors in June this year by the Gup, Gewog Administrative Officer and the Engineer of Dramedtse Gewog. According to the community contractors, this is in breach of the Community Contracting Protocols.
The Gewog officials had directly awarded a base course construction work for a 12km farm road in Ba-Ging Chiwog worth Nu 1.4M to contractor Sonam Detshen. They had also directly contracted a retention wall construction worth Nu 0.9M near Waichhur extended classroom to Daza Detshen.
The community contractors said the awarding of these works were done without discussing in the Gewog Tshogde or informing the Mangmi and Tshogpas.
According to Community Contracting Protocols :A Community Contract must be monitored by a Monitoring and Evaluation Committee composed of at least three respected members of the local community who are not officers of the association acting as Community Contractor. The Tshogpa should be a member of the Monitoring and Evaluation Committee. The protocols also state that the Monitoring and Evaluation Committee must confirm that the community contractor has the consensus of the local community to undertake the contract and witness the signing of the contract agreement between the gewog administration and the community contractor.
Sangay Tempa a community contractor in Waichur, Dramedtse said that if the Gewog administration sets a precedence of directly awarding contract work, some contractors will continuously get the work while some will not get any.
“I have nothing to say on huge contract amount but Gewog officials have to call the Tshogpa for meeting to discuss any contract work worth less than Nu 1.5M. If they had informed the Tsogpa prior to awarding the contract work we would not raise our concern,” he said.
Tobden another community contractor in Waichur said initially the Gup had informed that all community contract work in the Gewog will be awarded through open tender quotation. “But I am not aware why they awarded the contract work to the contractor without our notice. Even the Chiwog Tshogpas were not aware of recent contracts.”
Two Chiwog Tshogpas also said they were also not aware about the recent awarding of two contracts by the Gewog Officials.
Tshogpa Naku, Tshogpa of Zangkhar, Dramedtse said, “ Earlier we used to plan and award work by discussing it in the Gewog Tshogde.”
Tshogpa Ugyen Wangchuk of Bikhar_Thoongdari, Dramedtse said that the Gup during a recent meeting had clarified that the contract work was awarded to the contractor following a circular received from the Dzongkhag amid the COVID-19 situation. “However, we have created Wechat group and if the Gewog had informed us, we would have clarified with the community contractors.”
Dramedtse Gup Kinzang Tshering said the Gewog office had directly awarded the contract works to the contractors following a circular received from the Ministry of Finance in May this year.
The circular states that in the light of COVID-19 pandemic, procurement of works identified under economic contingency plan including farm road improvement has been simplified immediately. However, it doesn’t mention anything about awarding contract work without discussing the Gewog monitoring and evaluation committee.
Gup Kinzang also said that the work also awarded directly due to COVID-19 situation that refrained people from mass gathering and also due to inconvenience caused by e-PEMS (Electronic Public Expenditure Managing System).
“Since we have to use e-PEMS these days, it is not convenient for us to do it through open tender quotation. So we had to directly award the work to the contractor, as most of the contractors don’t use e-PEM system. ”
The Gup also added that they could not inform the chiwog Tshogpas and community contractors due to June closing.
The Gewog office has also made full advance payments to the contractors which contravene the advance payment provisions of the Community Contracting Protocol. According to the protocol total advance payments must not exceed 30% of the contract value.
Gup Kinzang Tshering said, they made the full payments in advance since the work were awarded to contractors residing nearby the Gewogs and they could closely monitor the work.
There are more than fifteen community contractors in Dramedtse Gewog.
Sonam Tshering
