By Chernor Alimamy Kamara
In a verified document read in parliament and widely circulated on social media, the Speaker of Sierra Leone Parliament Dr. Abass Bundu has called out the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) for allocating a European Union 3 million Euros contract to other subcontractors that he said lacked the technical capacity and as such did a substandard job.
The contract was meant for the renovation of Parliament which some have reached completion and others ongoing.
Speaking on the 23rd of March 2023, the Speaker said the renovation work is a result of an EU grant of 27 million Euros in 2016 to support the governance sector in Sierra Leone of which Parliament was allocated the sum of 3 million Euros for the said project.
However, he said the 3 million Euros allocated to Parliament has been implemented in ways that “fall far short and certainly do not meet their expectations”.
He explained that the contract for the renovation works was awarded by the EU office in Freetown to UNOPS which he said subcontracted to a number of subcontractors that ‘evidently lacked’ the technical capacity to deliver work.
Dr. Bundu stated that some of the subcontractors have performed “manifestly poorly and considerably below par, using materials and workmanship that are grossly substandard”. He said, as a result, the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC) in July 2022 authorized the parliamentary Clerk to constitute a Parliamentary Quality Assurance Committee to assess the renovation.
He said the Committee has completed its assignment and has produced an ‘excellent’ report notwithstanding the lack of cooperation by the UNOPS.
“I want to take this opportunity to thank the Assurance Committee for a job well done,” he said.
The Speaker emphasized that unless immediate remedial measures are taken to ensure that Parliament gets value for money through the rectification of the deficiencies and shortcomings in the works already done, they view UNOPS and its subcontractors to have committed contempt of Parliament, citing sections of the country’s Constitution.
He said that Parliament will not allow UNOPS to take ‘refuge behind the shield of diplomatic immunity’.
“Once they have descended from their exalted position as diplomats and come to the marketplace as contractors, by that act alone they cannot juristically be allowed to claim immunity from the rules of the marketplace that relate to contractors,” he said.
UNOPS is a United Nation agency that provides infrastructure, procurement, and project management services.
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