Plenty Contracts Under Review at Ministry of Works

Julius Espat

The Ministry of Infrastructure Development, formerly Works and Housing, like other government departments, is reviewing a number of contracts awarded under the previous administration.  Some of those agreements are funded by international organizations and as such are being looked over carefully.  According to Minister of Works Julius Espat, fifty percent of those contracts have been reviewed and are before the Attorney General’s ministry.

Julius Espat, Minister of Infrastructure Development

“There’s a lot of road contracts that we’re reviewing and additionally there are contract officers whose contracts we’re also reviewing.  Cabinet has requested that all the analysis be reviewed by the Attorney General, so we are in the process of doing our findings and then sending over to her the information that we have.  Some of them are very complex because they include international funding and so that has its own legality that goes with it.  I think we are about fifty percent through them.  The contract officers’ contracts, some of them are, how can I say, they are up already and they have to be renewed or replaced.  There are others that were signed and due maybe in a year or two years time.  Those are the ones that we are sending to the AG for her to look at and approve and then the ones that we can do in-house we are doing.  But apart from contracts, we are looking at all the supposed illegalities that happened with the misuse of the people’s equipment.  That one is about completed, we have gotten testimonies from a large amount of people that worked in the ministry and we have hired the services of Andrew Marshalleck to prepare an advice and that also will be forwarded to the Attorney General for her to look at.  That one is, I believe, very important because it will show how we have misused millions and millions of the people’s money for personal use.”