Deloitte makes bid for implementation of SEI

December 22, 2008 8:08 AM

Consultancy Deloitte takes part in the tender procedure around the implementation of the projects of the Social Economic Initiative (SEI), states Deloitte itself in a press release.

Reason for the press release is according to the bureau last week’s avalanche of suggestive and negative reports around the role of Deloitte in the SEI-trajectory, in which Deloitte is also constantly being linked to the person of Freddy Curiel. “With that report they try to exclude Deloitte from the SEI-trajectory under the mum of transparency.”
Deloitte plays a big part in the preparation of the SEI-program. The BC therefore wanted to put the implementation of the projects in the hands of Deloitte. The budget for this was about 1.6 million guilders. But that led to vehement criticism due to private tender and also because SEI-committee chair Freddy Curiel was partner at Deloitte. The implementation of the 127 projects is meanwhile delayed for almost a year and the Netherlands threatened to take back the reserved 130 million guilders. The Island Council decided this month on public tender for projects of 100.000 guilders and less.

Deloitte says now that Freddy Curiel is no longer a partner of Deloitte since January 1, 2000. He continued to work on part-time basis as advisor of the firm and assigned to specific projects. He has assumed the chairmanship of the SEI-committee on private capacity. That Freddy Curiel is chairman of the Supervisory Council of the Soab and not of the Board of Directors has according to Deloitte, no influence on the executive committee of the foundation and the carrying out of assignments.

The SEI-program contains 127 projects to set about social and economical deprivation in Curacao between 2008 and 2010. The total investment amount is about 250 million guilders, of which 130 millions comes from the Netherlands. The program was approved by the Netherlands and Curacao in May of this year.
A discussion started around that time on who is going to coordinate the implementation of the programs. Bottleneck was the writing of project-proposals, for which the BC says that there is too little capacity available in the civil service. That’s why much money was not used for development programs in the past.
Because Deloitte does have this capacity, the BC wanted give this coordination to this consultancy company, with the request to as much as possible use the available expertise of the official services. The offer didn’t go through due to the vehement criticism.

“It’s absolutely not true that Deloitte has aimed at a future assignment for herself. We were and are still in favour of a permanent coordination office. Deloitte’s effort would not have been needed or very minimum”, says the company. But now that the coordination office is off, Deloitte is completely free to be available on equal terms with other consultancy companies for specific SEI-profit sharing work in the sphere of project preparation or project implementation. “Deloitte also does not pretend having the capacity and expertise to cover all the projects and all the work fields. The trick is to put it into perspective, knowing your own strength and limitations, but also that of others. The projects are not Deloitte’s, but of many owners. The SEI is not Deloitte’s, but of the entire community.”

(Source: National newspaper Amigoe)

20 December, 2008