The saga of the scanners for Venezuela continue, raising more and more suspicion on the existence of such procurement and the continuing involvement of UNDP in dirty deals with dictators around the world. Now UNDP publish documents which prove that Setronix, the contractor selected from UNDP in a waiver of competitive biding, was and still is a supplier for the quartermaster general for National Arm Forces of Venezuela.On April 16th UNDP's David Morrison continued with it's version of the Venezuela story. UNDP produced in their For-the-record (blog) two documents from Setronix which were supposed to prove the existence of the scanners.
David Morrison stated that:
Number of scanners: The original number of scanners was 19. During the
lengthy procurement process, however, the price of the scanners went up. Precisely to accommodate this contingency, UNDP Resident Representatives are given limited authority to adjust contracts accordingly. On the scanner contract, after consulting with SENIAT, UNDP reduced the number of scanners to 17, and increased the overall amount of the contract by $5000. Even at the increased price, the L3 Communications scanners were much less expensive than those in rival bids.The procurement was done in two shipments, one for 16 scanners and the other for one scanner. (Click on following two links to view the documents for all 17 scanners: 1, 2).
First of all both these document clearly indicate that Setronix was and is a supplier for the Quartermaster General for National Arm Forces of Venezuela. Instead of proof of arrivals documents are direct indisputable proof of movement/shipment of equipment from one military base to another. Raising direct question of allege use of equipment from "public".
The problem is that both documents produced from UNDP are neither the Certificates of Customs nor the Lending Certificates which, as per UNDP procurement rules, would have been proof of shipment. Both documents are hand created documents which describes the transportation of certain equipment from one city to another city in Venezuela, and nor the dates nor the cities mentioned in the both documents refer to the port of arrival (or airport) of the initial L3 document which UNDP put online.
More important is that the latest document produced from UNDP (2) has been produced on April 3 - 2008, only days after the first story of FOX NEWS, and it contains a different seal of SENIAT on the document. This date is totally different with the statement of Setronix that the equipment arrived in Venezuela in Nov 2007.
But more important is that in the letter to FOX NEWS on April 11, 2008 , Setronix - the UNDP's contractor admits that the 1 unit out of 17 left Miami International airport and arrived at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Venezuela on Nov 11, 2007. (while in the alleged certificate is indicated April 3, 2008). In the same document Setronix indicate that they had received from UNDP - 90% of the contract payment. While none of the documents provided above is prove of existence or of the implementation of the said scanners in any given Venezuelan public Airport, nor they prove that such equipment are for public use by public administration and not the military (as in fact stated in both docs 1, 2)
Based on UNDP internal processes and rules, the above raises important questions:
- So who at UNDP's Venezuela Office cleared this procurement ?
- Who went to the receiving airport or port customs to receive the goods and clear the goods ?
- Who signed on PO and released the 90% of the payments and based on which proof of goods and certificate of good-condition?
- Who cleared this payment at UNDP's HQs Finance Unit and based on which supporting documentation?
Where are the pictures of the equipments purchased from UNDP ?
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