Mr Dharamkumar Seeraj, the general secretary of the Rice Producers Association, recently put the issue of consultancies back on the agenda when he questioned the award of a $264 million consultancy to the British firm Mott McDonald for a feasibility study of the drainage and irrigation system of nine agricultural communities. A letter writer later asked why an outside consultant was needed for this job when the Drainage and Irrigation Board is staffed with several engineers.

In a response, Mr Geoffrey Fraser, the Chairman of the National Drainage and Irrigation Board said that funds were allocated by the Government of Guyana/Inter American Development Bank (IDB) to undertake this consultancy. It was, he said, internationally advertised and awarded by the Central Tender Board and ratified by the Cabinet and the IDB. He went on to explain that “project preparation to access loans from the IDB has to satisfy specific requirements and this consultancy together with the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), taking all factors in consideration, was decided upon as the most appropriate modus operandi to meet the deadlines for application for this IDB loan.”

Understandably, development banks want to be satisfied as to the feasibility of a project before they fund it. But there are a number of features of these consultancies that have been much criticised. In the first place, many of these projects require project execution units which are often headed by expatriates at impressive salaries that can range from US$8000 to US$15,000 a month. Similar expertise is often available in the region at a much lower rate, say one half to one third. These costs, of course, come out of the loan and are ultimately borne by the taxpayer.

Often, too, there seems to be a lot of manoeuvring in the choice of consultant. Recently, one outstanding consultant in the information technology project appears to have been pushed out for reasons not connected with his efficiency.

Foreign consultants are sometimes hired at huge fees when local people can do the job. They end up getting most of the information they require from people here and also take a while to get to grips with the local situation. Foreign consultants may be justified in new areas like information technology but in other cases real questions arise as to whether local people could not do the job and the efficiency and effectiveness of some foreign consultants has also been questioned.

In the case in question, Mr Seeraj has noted that there is already a great deal of existing data on drainage and irrigation. Why is another consultancy needed to study issues that have been previously examined? Mr Fraser explained that “Mott MacDonald is associated with local firms that have the capacity and competence in the area of the various project deliverables for which Matt MacDonald has been contracted.” Couldn’t those local firms have done the job by themselves?

In almost every project financed by the IDB and the World Bank foreign consultants have been employed at very high salaries. They end up getting a lot of their information from local people. Similar skills are also often available cheaper in the region, and sometimes locally. The government, the local consultants and those two institutions should open a dialogue on this matter to see if any adjustments are possible. One useful step might be for the local consultants to provide these institutions with a data- base of all the technical and professional skills available locally and in the region.