THE UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) in Sierra Leone has been threatened with legal action over a €3 million contract for renovation work on the Parliament building in Freetown that ‘fell far short’ of expectations.
The warning came from the Speaker of Parliament, Abass Bundu, who said in a statement on the legislature’s website that from an EU grant of €27 million in 2016 to support the governance sector in the country, €3 million was allocated to UNOPS for the renovation.
‘Evidently lacking the technical capacity to deliver on the contract, UNOPS sub-contracted to a number of contractors,’ Bundu said.
‘Regrettably, some of the sub-contractors have performed manifestly poorly and below par, using materials and workmanship that grossly are sub-standard’.
He said the Parliamentary Quality Assurance Committee officially looked into the matter last year and had now completed its assignment it undertook on behalf of the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC).
Bundu said the Committee ‘produced an excellent report notwithstanding the lack of cooperation by the UNOPS…’
He added: ‘Without prejudice to the ultimate decision that the PSC will take on the report, I hasten to make it abundantly clear at this point that unless immediate remedial measures are taken to ensure that this Parliament gets value for money through the rectification of the deficiencies and shortcomings in the works already done, we shall take a dim view of the UNOPS and its sub-contractors to the extent of considering their poor performance as contempt of Parliament…’
‘I also want to sound a warning to UNOPS that this Parliament will not allow them to take refuge behind the shield of diplomatic immunity.
‘Once they have descended from their exalted position as a diplomatic agent and come to the market place as a contractor, by that act alone, they cannot juristically be allowed to claim immunity from the laws of the market place that relate to contractors in this country,’ the Speaker added.
When Africa Briefing contacted UNOPS, which has its headquarters in Copenhagen, Demark, the communications office said: ‘UNOPS is not commenting on the media coverage at this time.’
However, Africa Briefing has learnt the UNOPS country team management and EU project partners are ‘in dialogue’ with the relevant local bodies in Sierra Leone.
Bundu’s strong words for UNOPS will be music to the ears of Sierra Leoneans who have had to put up with shady cartels that have had control over every aspect of the country’s economic and business sectors for decades.
Successive governments (either All People’s Congress or Sierra Leone People’s Party) have failed woefully to clip the wings of these groups that are in charge of insidious monopolies.
As a result of the lack of competition in the market, prices continue to skyrocket without any recourse for financially hard-pressed consumers.
Also, construction and renovation works are usually shoddy.
UNOPS has found itself in this embarrassing position in Sierra Leone because it had no alternative but to go by what the market entails
Since the end of the civil war in the country at the beginning of the 2000s, the UN, international NGOs and foreign donors have flocked to Sierra Leone to aid its recovery but they have wittingly or unwittingly been ensnared by the cartels.
‘These cartels have been feathering their nests for a very long time at the expense of ordinary Sierra Leoneans,’ one source told Africa Briefing.
‘It’s time for the market to be free.’
