No favouritism during awarding of district cleaning deals, Doran says

April 5, 2023  -PHILIPSBURG–There will always be controversy where people want controversy to be at, said Minister of Public Housing, Spatial Planning and Infrastructure VROMI Egbert Doran on Wednesday during the Council of Ministers’ press briefing in response to questions about the 2022-2025 District Cleaning Tendering and Awarding Process. “No particular contractor was given preference,” Doran said.

The Party for Progress (PFP) faction in Parliament believes that there is reason to believe fraud was being committed. In a March 31, letter to the Minister, signed by Member of Parliament (MP) Melissa Gumbs and MP Raeyhon Peterson, the PFP faction stated that “there are valid concerns of fraud and/or corruption related to this tendering process, similar to the concerns expressed in the Ombudsman’s 2022 Systemic Investigation Report into the garbage collection tendering process.” This statement is based on the faction members having viewed the documentation under confidentiality rules of Parliament.

“In the Public meetings handling the Country Budget 2023, it was stated by the Deputy Minister of VROMI, Minister of Finance Ardwell Irion, that the Council of Ministers approved the district cleaning tender on 16 March,” the PFP faction wrote to VROMI Minister Doran on Friday. “In the meetings, several documents, including the SOAB report for the district cleaning tender, was requested by MPs. It was communicated by the Deputy VROMI Minister that the documents would be made available “ter inzage” [for perusal, Ed.] by the Secretary General of Parliament, as they were deemed to be confidential documents.”